Apologies for the long hiatus, things got pretty crazy as preparations for the new school year began. Anyway, I'm getting back into the rhythm of university life, so hopefully I'll be able to get back to writing more regularly!
I've actually been in school for 2 weeks already, and one thing has constantly been on my mind: The interaction between work and rest.
This summer, I don't feel like I did much work. I slept in, went on vacation, and spent lots of time with my friends. All of this I did with the mindset that this would be my final summer just to relax until the pressure of internships and other more scholarly summer activities occupied my time. Nevertheless, thoughts about such activities still preoccupied me, and I found myself with a keen sense of guilt as I woke up at 11am yet again to spend a day reading fiction, browsing the internet, and playing video games.
I feared that I wouldn't be able to adjust to the packed schedule of college life with how long and lazy my summer was, and yet I picked up the pace almost immediately upon arriving back. Work and homework piled up, and before I knew it, I had little time (and sometimes even desire!) to engage in the entertainment that preoccupied me so much during the summer.
What am I trying to get at here? I guess I've realized that the actual activity that one does in the summer isn't as important as what the time period/activity symbolically means to the person.
As I look back on the summer now with a bit of business under my belt, I see that despite the lack of concrete goals accomplished, it was a good summer. I deepened my relationships with my family, old friends, and consequently my older inner self that had weakened with all the new things constantly popping up in college life. I got to read more and flesh out my philosophies on some important topics. And of course, I had a lot of fun and laughter throughout those three months. I didn't realize the importance of all these things until they began to wane in my collegiate schedule.
When I symbolized the summer as a time of laziness, it propelled me to make more of my college time. But as college began again, I saw different dimensions of what I did over the summer, and it came to mean something else entirely.
I guess this has evolved somewhat beyond just work and rest. Every time period has its intricacies. They can be happy times or maybe sorrowful times. One may succeed in all his/her endeavors and feel empty inside, or fail and yet experience a rush of motivation and inspiration from that failure that leads to a new beginning.
Truly, the explicit happenings of the future are not under our control. But depending on how we symbolize our past, perhaps we are always in control of what the future means to us. And if that meaning grows strong enough... well, who know what we are capable of then?
