private goes public

Yesterday was a very long day for me, and I decided to be bitter about it. Normally I try to keep a positive attitude and remember the many people in the world who suffer from worse plights than mine, but yesterday I just felt like being cranky. So I did. Yesterday was Labor Day, a holiday off work for many people in America. But not for me. I scooped for almost 8 long hours at the ice cream shop. When I got there, I was cranky about being there. While I was there, I was cranky about how much extra work we had to get done, about how understaffed we were, about how many customers we had, about how sick (literally) and exhausted I felt; I was so determined to be cranky that neither my friend Sutania nor India Arie's music could cheer me up. When I finally left work, I was cranky about having spent so much time there and about having to go directly to campus to work on a frustrating group project for a class. And when I finally got home and went to bed late that night, I was cranky about having spent the whole day in a cranky mood.

As I waited for slumber to overtake me, I stared at the ceiling and thought about my day. These are the words that immediately came to mind: What a waste. Those three words are powerful ones to me, because I believe strongly in not wasting my life. I believe each day, each hour, each moment is a gift not only to be received, but also to be given away; I believe life as I know it now could cease to exist even before I am finished with this blog entry. Taped to my computer monitor is a fortune cookie message that reads, "A day is a span of time no one is wealthy enough to waste." So to me, wasting an entire day of my life is a big deal. It is a big deal because how I spend my day affects not only me, but also the people around me. So my time is not actually my time; it is our time; it is your time. My attitude affects your attitude. And as I contemplated yesterday, I felt it was almost a total waste. Not only did I have a miserable, cranky day, but I also managed to complain about my day to others. Somehow I momentarily chose to believe that my eighteen-hour pity party was private and all about "me," when it was actually public and all about "we". With each new day we are given the power to either encourage or discourage the people around us. We must inevitably do one or the other. And yesterday I chose to discourage my community.

Now I believe in honesty and expressing emotion. But I also believe a fine line exists between honest emotional expression and self-centered complaint. Yesterday I crossed that line. And as I lay awake in bed, I knew it, and it saddened me. I thought, How foolish; how silly; how wasteful. As I finally drifted off to sleep, I expressed to the divine my hope for the power to encourage someone tomorrow.

And thus tomorrow became today. The alarm clock woke me up at five minutes past five; I slowly rolled out of bed twenty minutes later. My goal was to arrive at the twenty-four-hour computer lab by 6:30 AM to finish my part of a group project. After dressing and eating breakfast, I hopped on my scooter and rode to campus. As I walked from my parking spot to the computer lab, I felt the cool breeze, observed the calmness of the morning, and silently wished I could take some time to stop and enjoy the dawn instead of rushing onwards. But onwards I marched. At 7:00 AM I arrived at the metal, double-door entrance to the computer lab and pulled down-and-out on the door handle to open the heavy door. It didn't budge. I tried again with no success. Was it locked? Then my eyes met the sign on the door which stated that during the second week of classes, the twenty-four-hour computer lab would only be open for seventeen-and-one-half-hours: from 7:30 AM to 1:00 AM. I was annoyed and even a little angry. How dare the twenty-four-hour computer lab not be open when I needed it? Why did I have to wait for 30 minutes to enter a lab that was already supposed to be opened? Now I would have to waste 30 minutes that I could have spent sleeping. Aargh.

But then I stopped, and I even smiled as a new thought struck me: Now I can take some time to stop and enjoy the dawn. So I did. I turned my back on the metal double-doors, found myself a picnic table, and sat down to watch the new day unfold. Almost as soon as I sat down, I was greeted by this thought: "I want to watch the sun rise every day." And out of that initial thought, the rest of this poem followed:


I want to watch the sun rise every day.
I want to feel the wind carry my cares away.
I want to let the quiet stillness erase
The words I thought I had to say.

All of this busy, worthless rushing to-and-fro,
I am learning more and more to loath.
What I want to learn (how to pray)
Lies in Nature's slow but constant growth.

As I walk beneath of the shadow of trees,
I wonder with each new hour what it sees.
What wisdom does it come to know,
As it observes the creatures hurrying beneath its ever-watchful leaves?

As the sun marks time by changing face,
Does the rest of Nature rush to keep in pace?
Or does she grow in peace?
Perhaps I, too - by standing still - can escape the pressure of this race.


Afterwards, I entered the computer lab and finished my part of the project. Later on that day, between classes, I reread the poem. And guess what I did after that? I turned the page and wrote a to-do list. Life must go on. For most of us, life means running some sort of race. But we can choose how to run, and we can choose when or if to stand still. We can choose to encourage, or we can choose to discourage. Yet no matter what we choose, we must choose. So as we make our choice, we ought to remember that "my" choice will not only affect "me"; it will inevitably affect "we."