The Meaning of Life

Several of us in this circle of blogs have expressed various thoughts and feelings about what to do with our lives in an overall sense. Based on my own experiences and what I know of all of your recent experiences, I think I'm approaching an answer. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any way to have a sudden, grand epiphany about these things. The realization will only come after many years and many steps of getting closer and closer to your ultimate purpose.

The answer I’m coming to is that experience is the only thing that will teach you what you like/want and don’t like/don’t want in your life, and experience is much more time consuming than thought. I think I remember Lisa hinting at something similar a while back. It’s great to reflect and weigh all of the factors in your head, but it helps to gather more experience first, then pull back and analyze your overall impressions of the experience as well as your impression of specific components of the experience. Collecting more and more life experiences is the only way to get a clearer and clearer picture of what you really want.

For example, if you don’t like your job, look for something else immediately and actually go do it! You can start by breaking down the characteristics of your current job into things you enjoy about it and things you don’t enjoy about it. Then, start by looking at other jobs that have a lot of the things you enjoy and less of the things you don’t. It doesn’t have to be the perfect job, your new job just has to be an improvement over the old job. If you spend all of your time trying to come up with an idea of what the perfect job would be and not taking any action until you come up with something, you are just wasting your time. Having a new, even slightly better job puts you in a better position in terms of overall happiness, and it also gives you a new set of experiences to work with. With more experience under your belt, you have so much more information to guide you towards finding your perfect job. Rinse and repeat.

The same principle applies for everything else in life. Suppose you know you should get in shape, but you hate running. Don’t ever run again! Try swimming, lifting weights, yoga, pilates, martial arts, cycling, etc. and see how you like those. Sitting around pondering the perfect exercise isn’t going to get you into shape. Gaining experiences in many different areas of life will give you a clearer image of your overall goals and purpose in life. Plus, just taking action of any kind gives you a sense of progress and control over your life and your destiny.

Vegas, Baby!

To celebrate my being done with school and my friend Kay's birthday, I went to Las Vegas this past weekend for the first time since moving here. We had a blast! (Pictures coming soon.) I'm not much of a dance club type of person, but I have to admit that I had a great time at Revolution. (Vodka and Red Bull helps!) For shits and giggles, I decided I was going to speak with an Irish accent for the entire evening and kept it up until around 2 AM when I just got drunk and forgot about it. It was interesting having serious conversations with my friends while talking with an Irish accent. As for the gambling, I came out exactly even after a couple hours of blackjack. I also tried to start things off with $5 on red at the roulette table (a la Entourage), but the minimum bet was $10. So, I bet twice on red and won $20!

I also have a couple of concerts to report on and a celebrity couple sighting, but you'll just have to wait until I have some more time for that.

6.5 Years

What do 6.5 years look like on paper? Maybe like this:

PhDone!

I FINALLY defended my thesis on Monday. I'm done, done, and done! No more school! No more Hemby lab! It feels great being a PhD rather than a PhD*.

It was also great being back in Atlanta for a little while afterwards and being able to relax with the good friends who are still there.