Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Funny how your priorities and anxieties change as you get older. 15 years ago, when my favourite book was the I Wonder Why encyclopedia, my biggest fear was that Earth would fall into a black hole in the imminent future. A large concern by most standards, and I was fairly indignant that I had to bear the burden of worry for all humankind at such a tender age. Strange how the destruction of the world now plays second fiddle to the more trivial issues -- money, bills, lack of money, amounting bills.

The top 3 things on my Worry List now -- let's see:

1. Staying safe on my trip. Let's just say I'm seriously considering bringing along birth control pills in case anything wayward happens.

2. Graduating with passably good grades. I keep hoping the reason I'm doing so poorly in school is because I'm secretly a genius, though you'd expect at least a slight glimmer of intelligence to have made itself known by now. Whatever the case is, working in an office is making me dread the looming, 40-year office life scenario.

3. Money, money, money -- a thread of thought that runs constantly through the back of my mind. In an ideal world I'd be able to shop as much as I want, travel as much as I want, get my myriad of degrees in a myriad of subjects.

As it is, I sometimes feel life is spiralling out of control, steering itself stubbornly onto a path I tell myself I wasn't born for. After all, wasn't I born special, and unique, and different, and destined for great things? Yes, yes, yes! But then I realise that scores of people come into life knowing that they're meant to achieve the fantastic, and all that the best of us can do is to reach out and strain to touch the silken wisp of a life we wish we had.

This year, I'm turning 21. That's a huge, almost scary milestone of an age. It heralds the coming of, well, things that are more necessary than fun. It'll bring me one step closer to working, to marriage, to kids who'll grow up ambitiously thinking they won't be as jaded as their mom.

So you know what? This is my list of things I want to do by the time I'm 25. Then I'll write a new list of things I want to get done by the time I turn 30, and hopefully, this list won't let me settle into the doldrums of a life, wasted.

1. Visit Mongolia.
2. See snow.
3. Bungee jump.
4. Learn to play the guitar.
5. Study somewhere in the Western part of the world.
6. Attend a music concert.
7. Publish an article.
8. Meet a proper celebrity (don't know how this can be accomplished though).
9. Teach myself Physics.
10. Visit an observatory.

In the meantime, perhaps it would be healthy for me to keep my mind on more trivial issues -- the fact that the nearest black hole is a mere 1,600 lightyears away, for instance.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

hello sarah! haha wow this was a really good blog entry! i can help you to fulfill your wish #6 and when we go to cambodia, we'll fulfill wish #10!

Has the observatory replied your email yet? we should be booking by now if not we can't go there on time! let me know and i'll call the observatory for you!

Sarah said...

hahahaha i just realised you said cambodia instead of indonesia. someone thinking about cambodia too much eh? ;)

bah said...

Just remember: you are unique, just like everyone else.