Offering homage to the popularized Gotye song, I admittedly am just somebody that I used to know.

How often to the imaginings of our prior selves clash incongruously with our current persona?  When asked in our youth what we yearned to be, none would have answered retail manager.  Business owner perhaps would be the answer, but not the servile role of subjugate.  How many envision themselves warehouse workers? How many  dream of being mechanics?  Who wants to be an accountant?  All these are vital social roles though none that we strive for in our developmental years.

In youth we were sold an illusory ticket to the apex of our imaginations.  The climb to the heights though becomes hampered by the affronts of everyday life.  Many accept roles simply to pay rent.  Many because they failed to apply themselves in high school.  Some, just rage against the upbringing forced upon them.

Is it simply that our dreams are in constant battle with our reality?  Is planning and setting a goal for the future such a bad thing?  Are we mostly perpetual projections of failure if we do not achieve all that we set out to accomplish?

A favorite quote of mine is “Life is what happens while we are busy making other plans.”  If there is a validity in this maxim, might we truly be failing to live?  There seems  a constant pursuit of that which is out of our reach.  Is is continuous masochism that awards setting these lofty destinations on the highway of life, only to find that once achieved the end was merely a heat mirage? 

Human beings will never be satisfied.  It seems the only true satisfaction lies at the end of the tunnel, where peace and nothingness await.  When we move on, the struggle and toil will end.  This constant pursuit, and never being happy with ourselves, will cease.  But why wait until the end to be happy?

We are a constantly changing, ever evolving people.  I am no more the man I was five minutes ago than I am now.  I am in constant motion and change.  I believe that of everyone.  Certainly the background of an individual creates a fluid construct by which we perceive our shifting world differently.  What makes all the difference is the choices we make.  I could choose to be disappointed at the person I am and the failure to meet the expectations of the fifteen year old Jesse.  I am not that boy though.  I will not be the person writing this when five years pass.

Our sense of time serves to quantify our accomplishments.  What’s your five year plan? You’re 28 and not married yet?  Have you purchased a house yet, you’re almost 50? Don’t you think another job would be more enjoyable?  Shouldn’t you be thinking about retirement now?  What if something happens to you?

There are tremendous efforts exerted on behalf of worry.  It is also stated that worry never added a day to anyones’ life.

There is one constant. And that is today.  I have this moment and this time to share.  Let the morrow bring what it may.

Humbly yours,

J