“Live like every moment was your last,” “Live like you will die tomorrow” and maxims in this vein are both inspiring and well-meaning, but they do not provide a sense of direction, nor do they adhere well to the way life operates.
Can you truly live like it is your last moment when you are brushing your teeth, showering, waiting for a friend at a food court or sleeping? The exalted drama, the great sense of satisfaction promised in these sayings is found not in every single moment, but in the trends and patterns you set for yourself. These trends and patterns are made most obvious when you examine your goals in life and how you work to achieve them. As I mentioned, life is not such that every waking moment can be one lived as thought it were your last. This is what causes many people to despair, to feel that they are not achieving anything. The way to be successful and happy is to set goals for yourself and to funnel all of your efforts toward achieving them. Let every moment, the good and the bad, the enthralling and the boring, be purposeful with some end in mind. This slow funneling of effort, this purposeful action, will help give you a sense of direction and happiness by attaching a narrative, a greater importance, to even the most mundane of moments.
The ambitions of students at this university are as varied as the students themselves. Whether you want to begin to love yourself, speak to people more often, get a certain GPA, overcome heartbreak or prepare for a job, in addition to any other feasible goal, I cannot know. But I know if you work constantly, little by little, that you will see improvement in your life, and you will succeed as you want.
Be ever loftier. From where you are currently, go up. Always higher. Ever loftier. This is a maxim that is better reflective of reality and gives you a sense of direction in life at a time when your direction is not yet fully known.
Scott Jauch
Sophomore in International Studies
sjauch@indiana.edu
