I have work to do, but I can't concentrate. I can't focus. What is it that I am looking for? What are these distracting thoughts about me about you about life. About the path of life. What is all of this about.

Last night, as I sat on the floor in sweet solitude with my pen and ink and paper, I had a new sort of thought. It was a thought associated with the thoughts that I have been having about why I am here, where I am going, about Paths. Walkways. Roads and plans. I began to wonder if my mindset, my eye on the certain prize has colored my choices, my steps. And I began to wonder if even though I was saying that I will come here to Boise to make new discoveries and to see where things lead, I was still very much committed to returning to the same path that I was on. I said I came here to adopt a new mindset of being less concerned with the path of production and accomplishment and fulfilling some set of expectations, but I don't know if I have really died to that yet. Really. I am sort of in this dilemma of why is it that I have chosen to continue on the path that I am continuing on. Really.

The question: Why am I choosing to return to Colorado, why am I going back to CSU to finish my degree. Part of me, when I ask that question, whispers, "Uh, hello, dear, but it is sort of obvious isn't it? Finishing your degree is what you are supposed to do. To not do that would be like, you know, quitting, flaking out. Not accomplishing what is expected of you in light of 'success'." And then the other side of me has to answer with this rebuttal: Am I finishing my degree just so that I can have something to do with my life? Am I wanting to finish my degree so I can have a secure future with a good job. Do I say I want to teach just becuase it is the only "career" that I want, since I have to choose? I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy teaching and I think being a teacher is a role that I am passionate about filling in this world, but I have learned something in all this time being around people. Am I seeking this structure to avoid the hard work of really focusing on relationships?

I want me life to be focused on relationship first. I want this to be my driving passion. "It is the love of Christ that compels us." I want love of the hearts of others to be my driving force. But the thing that I find is that it is really easy for me to get distracted. I think we set up systems in our world that breed these distractions. I am a book worm. Why? Because the sense of accomplishment that I get after completing a task feels a lot more secure that the rejection that I fear. It is a great deal more tangible.

But I don't really want to have that kind of security anymore. But I feel like it is so difficult for me strike a balance. How can I be a student and also be a person. How do I keep my busy school schedule from becoming my whole person? How do I avoid this isolation? How do I indulge my love of learning, reading, intellect, without letting it become more important than the deeper lessons that there is to learn from being with other people.

I am beginning to experience this world of just being with people and enjoying other people and it is all that I want. I feel that our age of information has done us a great disservice in communicating that there is greater fulfillment in earning money and getting our willies from a sense of accomplishment from paper success than the risk of opening our hearts to other people. We become comfortable in our cubicles behind our computer screens-- we become myspace profiles and we email so we don't have to face each other and we think this is safe and nice. And yet we wonder why we have internet addiction-- this type of connection never really satisfies.

And I am beginning to see that breathing the same air as someone else, looking into the eyes of another and hearing the nuances of their cracking voice is so much more life-giving. It is real-- it is soil in place of the plastic that chokes us.

And so as I think about going back to school, I suddenly feel afraid. I am afraid of getting sucked back in. Sucked into this resume-building, stress-induced intensity that perpetuates a system of death from safety. I have been so enjoying earning my livelihood from barista-ing because it helps me pay the bills, but the emphasis is being on a team-- we all work together to get the coffee made, the food served, and the floor swept. It isn't a matter of deadlines and failure to please others. It is a matter of being connected to one another. It is this cycle of helping each other run a business so we can all stay alive in this world. We aren't just serving this giant corporation and getting a paycheck every few weeks to make it all worth it-- we are all playing a part in our own livelihood and the livelihood of those around us. That feels very good. It is very fulfilling.

And so I think about going back to school and I think about the life that I lead here. And the last few days I have been thinking about how even though I have been physically here, I have still been spending a lot of energy maintaining my place in this system-- somewhere else. All that I have been seeking and striving for has been to make sure that I have something to show for myself when this time is done, that in the future, I will have this paper success. This stuff that I can show for myself. What I do for today seems to always be for something somewhere else, somewhere later.

I know I have written before about always planning for the next thing. After I am done with high school, then I go on to college, which is preparation for some career in some capacity, and once I get that big time job, it is in pursuit of the next promotion and then after that it is retirement-- the time that we have time to actually enjoy our lives, if we are able to after our ingrained lifestyles of stress anger lack of fulfillment for the sake of "the man." Who devised this system of enjoying our lives only after we have destroyed our hearts to the point of being unable to enjoy anything.

I know I talk about this a lot and now I have reached a crossroads where I have to intentionally decide how can I make my life truly reflect this idea. What am I doing to enjoy my life today? How much of my life is devoted to maintaining the promise of security for the future. How much of my life is driven by the fear of lack thereof?

There is a lot of focus placed on the importance of being "responsible." We must fulfill our obligations and we must place our lives in such a place that we have those obligations or else what are we called? Bums. We are answering to so many people about how our lives ought to be considering meaningful. What is a meaningful life? honestly? I think there has to be a balance somewhere, but I keep having this sense that we need to always be doing things with our lives that are ultimately driven by love. Even if it is a few layers below the surface, love must be down there.

So a life that is about relationships. I don't want to live a life where relationships are buried somewhere down below. I don't want to live a life where relationships are just a part. I don't want to live a life where relationships are the icing on the cake that make life endurable.

And so another thought emerges from this. If I am still finding that ultimately my life is based on this assumed path of " success" to "success," something is missing. I think this is the thing that really keeps me from being present. When my life is simply about breathing in the lives of the people around me, then tomorrow doesn't matter much, does it? The focus suddenly shifts from me maintaining my own security in isolation to learning how to be more connected to the hearts around my own. And it is this process of investing deeply without expectation, pursuing reconciliation until we find the end (which I'm not sure will ever be reached) and having a loose hand of grace when people move in and out of our lives.

It is a messy process, I find. A process fraught with pain and challenge and the continual need to build new muscles and a bravery to face the deepest of pains. And it is in no way methodical or formulated. And this is why I think we try to cover it over with the "really important" systems of success. Those ladders we try to climb-- maybe we are just trying to get away from the intensity of actual life, the life that goes on in our real hearts. And so we do get away, unfortunately, we get away from the heart that beats and we become hard and wonder why we feel so very dead.

So where will all of thie lead me? I do not know. Today I haven't really accomplished all that much, for which I feel a tiny twinge of guilt, but mostly it is refreshing to seek a balance of what really matters. If I were to do much more today, it seems that it would be out of a sense of obligation. I am experimenting with the idea of spending time enjoying my life every couple of days. I am experimenting with the joy of getting enough sleep at night and taking time to listen to my heart.

Jesus often spent extended periods of time away from the obligations and expectations of those around him-- when crowds were coming to him, begging for healing and teaching, he chose to retreat to solitary places. He wasn't consumed with fulfilling the expectations of others or maintaining any sort of resume-- he clearly rejected that sort of occupation. Being called insane by your family and a drunkard by the religious athority didn't really seem to bother him all that much. So maybe now I will begin writing my speech for tomorrow. just because....