the hamster wheel

I have had some serious health problems in the last few weeks. I don't want to get too personal here, but the reality is that I have something wrong with my brain. I am waiting on the results as to whether I have a brain tumor or just epilepsy or some other disease that one can take medication for and simply live with. This has made me really think about things recently and re-evaluate my life. My next few blog posts will be about the issues that I have come upon, including the issues of death and the good life I present here. In these posts, I don't really want reactions about me or how I'm feeling, only on the philosophical debates that such issues bring up. I honestly don't need any more "Are you ok?"s or "I'm so sorry"s.

That being said, I find myself wondering what it was all for. This may seem like very despondent or depressed sort of thinking, but it's actually positive. I want to live. I just can't help but feel that I've put my nose to the grindstone all my life to achieve something, make something of myself, to be x type of person with y type of life one day. The reality is that many people never get there. I understand we have to act as though things in the world mattered, otherwise we would never do anything, but honestly, if I were to die now or even in a few years, my life would have been a complete waste. I would have suffered all my life so that I could reap benefits later, hated what I was doing, and putting life on hold, and that end result would never have happened. It would all have been for nothing. Like I said, these words sound like they should come from a depressed or possibly suicidal person, but the truth is that people who are dying or think they might be dying have the same thoughts, but think about it from the opposite side. I need to live in order to make my life worth it. I can't die now or even soon, because my life would have been meaningless.

I was always scared of this, though I thought that it would be one day when I am very old; I would look back on my life and realize that I haven't lived. I knew this, and somehow I still couldn't see a way out of it if I wanted to get where I was going. There would always be more ladders that I would feel compelled to climb. There is always the raise, the promotion, and soon you're dead and regretting not spending time with your family or friends and not doing that irresponsible thing. Then at least you would have some memories to smile on when you look back.

The thing I want to talk about is, that we often know where our lives are headed based on the personalities combined with the drive and the dreams that we know we have. We also often know the price of chasing those dreams, and the sacrifices that must be made to "make it happen" for ourselves. We even know that in chasing our dreams, we often give up our lives. We know, but we still do it. Is it that we think that there is nothing else to do? Is it that we prize our ideal future life so much? Is it that we think that we might actually get there one day, and we try to pretend that one day we will stop running in our hamster wheels? Do we think that one day we will make the decision that we are where we want to be, and we can finally "buck the system"? In any case, we never think that if we try as hard as we can that it won't happen. We always think that one day we will get there, through our hard work and perseverance; just that it may not really be what we wanted. I want to ask the readers here: Why do you go to work, to school? Why do things you hate doing? Why suffer people you can't stand? Why put off seeing the people you love? Is there something more important than that?