Legacy

     Why must everything be profound? Even little things are massive in the grand scheme of things. I’ve read quite a few books of poor quality, or ones that did quite the opposite of satisfying me. Had I given up on them early on, how many hours, how many days of my life would I get back? Little things add up…
     It’s tiring. I can’t reverse how I see things. I regret so much because of it. But I also know that right now, this very second even, I’m doing things I won’t regret. I won’t ever regret writing this blog. It’s too important. I don’t care that hardly anyone reads it; the few who do are a good enough reward.
     My time is so valuable now. Every little break I savor; every time I work on my projects, I glow. It irritates my family that I’m so conscientious of time. I think it’s a grand thing.
     I mean, what if I were to die tomorrow? It’s a morbid thought, perhaps, but it’s also motivational. It’s cliché, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. I want to stand before God knowing that I made the most of this life. How can I do that if I waste away my time?
     I’m not sure how I got to this topic. I didn’t mean to talk about anything so deeply important. But it’s related, I suppose, to this post’s original purpose. Forgive my confused mind.
     Throughout this summer, I’ve had a list of daily things to accomplish. Every week, I made a new copy. At the end of each day, I’d count up the points. One week, I ran out of room on the double-sided, single spaced notebook paper, and had to just add a “Miscellaneous” category. Since then, I’ve added more and taken others off. It’s shrunk so that I can focus on reading more than a chapter in each book a day, or write more, or so on. And now the list has been greatly narrowed. But how do I choose what to cross off and what to add? How do we as Christians do this? How do we decide what’s important and what to throw away?
     A year ago, I began this terribly bewildering, difficult, and at times, painful quest. I was starting college, so the summer before I gave up some habits. This is embarrassing: as a homschooler, I had a lot of extra time, and almost unlimited access to the computer. After joining Facebook, I found out my mom played this game called Farmville. Ever heard of it? I started playing it as well. That was the time when at least a quarter of my friends were playing, if not more. Then I found other games. Then more. You know what’s sad? I could strategize my way through these games so well, it was not uncommon for me to be the top player among my friends. I was astonished by how much more time I had when I quit all of those things. When school started, I hardly had any time to do any writing for fun. All those notebooks in a giant box in my room sat idle for months at a time. That was truly excruciating for me.
     But where’s the line? What’s okay to cut, healthy even, like Farmville, and what’s hurtful? School took over my life. It gave me anxiety, made me sick, and made it so I stopped attending church and youth group, and stopped volunteering at AWANA. But I was still getting great grades. At the time, that’s what mattered. And now I have to face yet another miserable year of that in a month.
    When God told Noah to build the ark, there was no question about priorities. But not everything is so clear as that. Whenever I’m around something that has to do with psychology, I can’t stop myself from listening. When I learn ASL (American Sign Language), something just clicks. And when I’m reading or writing, I feel positively giddy. So, I’ve got the drive. But which should I devote my time to? Which job area should I pursue? Because everything I do is significant, I can’t imagine making the wrong choice.
     So how do we do it? Where’s the line? What’s healthy and what’s hurtful? While the line is getting clearer in some instances, like which books I should focus on, it gets blurry in others, like whether I should focus most of my time writing a novel I hope to publish (after quite a bit of editing, of course).
     Prayer. Reading the Bible. Talking with those we look to for Biblical wisdom. I’ve heard it all. I’ve tried it all. I’m not saying that these aren’t helpful; far from it! They’ve all helped me to an extent. And I’ll continue in these things. I just wish I had more patience, I guess. I mean, I am supposed to begin applying to colleges next month. But God will take care of it. He always does.
     Oh, Lord, please give me strength to continue in You and to see the line clearly.
     “Oh, I want to leave a legacy to be remembered.
     More than just a memory that fades away,
     Because we only, we only get one life.” -Sanctus Real