some thoughts on the moment

Day by day I attend class with a bunch of really smart people who are well educated, well experienced and hard working in a graduate level program at East Carolina University. I never really take that moment to really appreciate where I am, where I am going next and how I got here as I assume most people don't either. The whole thing is as the dead say "a long strange trip", which of course can have many meanings.

I never thought in a million years that this is where I would be and what I would be doing, but I just get up and do it, day in day out part of that automatic grind to get ahead in life or keep up with the pack. Accomplishments or success really doesnt mean anything without the process involved. Thats what makes or breaks you. You find your strengths in your weaknesses. I always wonder how people end up with careers they never thought they would want to do and love it, or someone that set out to do one thing ending up enjoying something totally different. They discover these things in that process of getting to wherer they are, sometimes its random and sometimes its a calling.

Me personally, I never believed I would still be alive at 25 years of age. Teachers and friends would tell me I was not going to make it that far in life. I dropped out of high school not cause I couldnt do the work but because I didnt feel like it was my path, and I had intense interests in other things at that time which were more important at that point. Then I struggled through a bad relationship, struggled in sobriety and worked on getting my GED, then my associates degree as a punk with a nose ring, bandanas, and tattoos. Made it that far then was accepted to a school in the duurty durt and up and moved out of that horrible relationship, in which there was no relating, and really had noone but myself in this new strange place, even four years later its still a strange place,to go through everything I had to get through to gain some idea of who I may be and what that means to me. In that process I made some friends, lost some friends, met a lovely lady, traveled alot, worked on the 12 steps of AA and NA, worked on relating with my family, changed musical tastes, became addicted to books, movies, and music, completed a Bachelor of Psychology degree and somehow ended up as one of 11 people accepted into the Graduate school program I am in and I decided maybe to do this in Febuary and had to apply by March. Last minute. There is a million others things that happened in between all of those steps in my career, emotions, thoughts, relations, smiles, laughter, depression, struggles, fall downs, decisions, pick ups, patience, starting over,adventure, friendship, exercise, helping others, humility, honesty, loyalty, independence, volunteering, sports, spiritual development, peace of mind, proud, grace, open mind, dreaming, competitive, creative, determination, dependable, laziness, serious, stubborn, sympathy, persuasive, learning, hopeless, learning how to trust people, experience, anger, optimism, other shoe may not drop...just yet, there is a wide range of events that occur within events that shape who I have become and helped me get where I am.

Sometimes I can get caught up in the grind and not slow it down to realize that this is life......enjoy it.....Its hard with the economy being screwed and politics going crazy, war, hunger, genocide, not to think about those things and want to help of solve the worlds problems on top of your own, but right now in front of me is what is what is right now, enjoy it, enjoy the process because the process is the accomplishment, the process is the moment, all the moments make life.