What’s Important?

It’s events like the earthquake in Haiti or Hurricane Katrina that makes me slow down a bit and think about the important things in life. In the Bay Area especially, I feel that we are all in a huge rat race. We’re trying to get rich and rise to the top. We’re trying to keep our jobs and maintain some semblance of a social life. I’m a victim to this myself. Every now and then we will hear about or experience the loss of a loved one. And for a couple days or a couple weeks, we’ll take some time to reflect and then almost immediately put ourselves back in the rat race. But why? In the past few weeks I’ve thought a lot about the meaning of life and what I want to take from it. I recently graduated from school and entered the work force full time. My job allows me a lot of flexibility, so I don’t have to be in at a certain time or stay till a particular hour. I come and go as I please. In the evenings or on the weekends when I’m not working I find myself looking for things to do. I get bored very easily. For a while I took up watching more TV or reading books. But that didn’t really fill the void. While it’s too early to be going through a mid-life crisis, I am finding it difficult to find a huge sense of purpose. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and I love helping people in the ways that my career allows me to, but I feel that there’s something beyond that. Currently I fill my hours with exercise, TV, books, and a significant other. At 22 years of age I guess I’m not “supposed” to really be worrying about very much else. I’m making money, I’m motivated, I’m pursuing additional degrees, and yet for some reason I feel like I’m not focusing on what’s important. But I can’t seem to figure out what it is that’s important. I’ve given some consideration to coaching a recreational basketball team or mentoring in some way, so that I feel like I’m needed or appreciated in some way other than my career. But I’m not super into that kind of thing.