Everything will be of use someday.

Trail by Sti@nTrail by Sti@n 

Whether muttered under once breath during a pop quiz, or sourgraping because the class nerd ridiculously knows everything (and you don’t), or just plain ‘making a statement’ on your trip to your first day in class (in high hopes that your father/mother behind the wheel  would realize that you’re right, and turn the car around), the question ‘Why do I have to study THAT? (I wouldn’t need it anyway) has become a coming-of-age mental conundrum that is as developmentally omnipresent as pimples during puberty.

I would still be asking myself  the same question today (yes, self-confessed geeks also do!) had it not been for a journal.

If there was something in school that I am proud to take with me in the traveling bag I carry around with me today, it’s the wisdom of the people I’ve met. When I was in highschool, journals were a means to hone writing skills and an opportunity to put in your two cents worth, be analytic, and ‘talk’ to yourself, while also letting someone join in the conversation. It’s amazing how we still fail to hear ourselves no matter how much we ‘talk’ to ourselves in a journal, and how someone who reads your journal can add perspectives you would never have imagined at the moment you’re writing your thoughts down.

“Everything will be of use someday.”

We may not believe that the things we’re being taught are essential to our future or to what we want to become. We may loathe every perceived classroom injustice and wish we were doing something else more ‘significant.’ We may complain over and over. And over.

It does not matter. Because what happens to your life is WHAT IS. The WHAT WOULD BE part is answered in due time, and in that due time, you will find that the WHAT IS today is always connected to the WHAT WOULD BE tomorrow.

“Everything will be of use someday.”

Parallel to the wisdom of Mr. Steve Jobs, that six-word answer scribbled in the bottom of my highschool journal entry helped me understand that what happens in our life today make up the dots that we can all connect someday:

“Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Everyday, I am in constant pursuit of connecting the dots in my life. That day when I wrote that journal entry is a dot. My writing of this blog at this very moment is a dot, too. What I do or experience tomorrow will eventually add to the dots which will lead me to a future that I can only reach with faith. These dots are all pebbles we have left throughout our journey, whose trail can help us understand who we are as we look back and attempt to answer all the Why’s in our life.

It is a fulfilling moment when everything finally makes sense. Why, I, for instance, grew up in a family and environment that nurtured my creativity at a young age, why I took the course I did, completed the internship I did, and worked in the company I did, and am doing what I am doing today. Most of all, I can partially connect the dots to about why I met the people I did, acquired their wisdom, and shared their passions, too.

It does take time to understand one’s Personal Legend, as Paulo Coelho puts it, but when you do realize it, hold on to it, and pursue it with pure love and passion, it will absolutely make a magical difference in your life.

Go figure. :)

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