Monotony = The Enemy

I am the cereal-box champion for right-brained thinkers (though my anal retentive list obsession and methodical goal-achievement plans sometimes throw people off). I prefer doing 20 things at the same time, often for no conceivable reason. I learn German on the way to work, join nature clubs for only a few weeks, start random art projects, & take on so many arbitrary hobbies that it’s practically impossible to master them all.

I’ll try almost anything once, and once is generally how I prefer it. In the eyes of my peers, who struggle to understand my decision to be “mediocre at a thousand things” (in the words of my high-school drama teacher) rather than to perfect more marketable skills that companies appreciate on a resume, change and exploration are my most menacing vices. But my time-management choices are completely logical to me, as monotony in any aspect of my life does nothing but bore and dishearten.

For example, a friend who had known me since childhood, and was well aware of my intense hatred for any activity involving sweating, once asked how I managed to complete a marathon within a year of taking up running. The explanation was simple: First, I had a concrete goal that I wanted to check off my list of random things I’d accomplished in life and, second, I never ran the same track twice. Every day, I took every unexplored path, turned every new corner, and followed it until I was tired - then I turned around and ran back. Driven by my curiosity, I was my own personal distance trainer, and I learned more about the town’s geography than even some of the residents!

In my opinion, routine patterns prohibit me from discovering things & people I may fall in love with. But change sparks knowledge – knowledge about myself and the world around me. Change allows me to determine what I want for my life, who I want to be in it, what I enjoy, and just as important, what I DON’T enjoy. Doing things you don’t enjoy is a waste of time, and I abhor wasting time. In my case, we will use math as an example.

Math and I parted ways long ago following several years of intense fighting. In the end, I determined that math had no relevance to my Anthropology & Spanish degree, and we broke up for good. To be quite honest, I haven’t missed it very much. I’ve started new relationships with TurboTax, Microsoft Money, and calculators, all of which are willing to do the difficult part for me.

But the college board has reminded me yet again (in the form of the GRE) how seriously I should take important mathematical matters such as how much faster Janice can fill a 12-gallon fish tank with a thimble than Chuck can using a teaspoon. Frankly, I think both Janice and Chuck should find better things to do with their time than using inadequate measuring tools to fill large spaces, and I have yet to understand how such calculations will help me achieve a Masters in Journalism.

I realize that math is a vital skill in the business world, and business is where I would make the most money. I’m not dumb – in fact, I was in advanced-level mathematics throughout high school. But business & the money it brings don’t interest me as much as the thousands of things I want to experience in my lifetime, no matter how poor and socially unsuccessful I may appear to most of the population. If I don’t enjoy math & business – why put myself through it when I could be exploring something I’m passionate about?

In a twist of irony, I learned a valuable lesson watching a TV show, even though I usually consider watching TV a waste of precious clock ticks. On an episode of “Scrubs”, a young doctor tried to convince a dying patient to accept medical treatment for the cancer eating away at her physical body. The doctor had prepared a list of things he thought everyone should do before they died. As he blurted out each adventure, the calm, controlled woman patiently checked them off one by one and, much to the young doctor’s astonishment, instead posed the same question to him: which of those things had he done in his lifetime? The look on his face betrayed that, although still young, most of his time had been spent drilling medical books and working long hours at the hospital. The dying woman had stoically accepted that her time had arrived, and she had no regrets about how she had spent the hours of her life. The doctor, on the other hand, could only reply, “I’m scared”, as he sat down beside her on the hospital bed, allowing her to hold him.

Why was the doctor so scared, even though he wasn’t the one dying? I think most people are scared of pursuing things they want to do because they are afraid of deviating from the long-tread path of “should’s” and “supposed to’s”. We spend so much time pleasing others (our boss, our company, our friends) that we deserve to spend the rest of our time experiencing life and all it has to offer.

I will inevitably have to work most of my life in some form or another – it’s just one of those necessary evils that can’t be avoided (unlike math!). So I choose to spend my free time exactly how I want to. When my time comes, I want check off everything on that list of things I wanted to experience in life with no regrets. I’m a girl who likes variety, and doing a million things, trying a million things, and seeing a million things are what make me happy.

At least I’ll never wonder what I missed.