Through Brick Walls

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” 

― Randy Pausch

Living through the Hard Times

In life, it is foolish to live for what is easy and to make your primary goal to get away from difficult situations. Start out assuming that life is going to be hard. There are going to be days that you wish you could erase from your memory, moments that break your heart. Instead of making it your goal to avoid these times, make it your goal to live through these moments with perseverance, grace, understanding, and patience. Don't give up just because it's hard. Don't give up on someone just because they aren't perfect. Life is difficult, but if you give up on everything that is hard or painful sometimes, you will likely miss out on some of the best things in life. Few things worth having come easily.

A Passing Darkness

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam. 
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. 
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam? 
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for. 

Hopeless Dreamers in a Hardened World

As a child, each one of us was asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our answers were generally met with amused smiles, feigned shock, or laughter from the knowing adults. As we grew older and reached our pre-teen and early teen years and became middle schoolers, some of us still maintained hold on the dreams of our childhood. We still wanted to be firemen, musicians, presidents, or dancers. Slowly, some began to alter their dreams to meet their skills and school activities. Maybe we now wanted to be professional athletes or teachers. As we reached our high school years and were faced with decisions about colleges and majors and careers, many of our dreams quite suddenly became much more practical. We found ourselves concentrating our studies on subjects far from those we originally dreamt that we would. Some of us still dreamed of getting that perfect job, though, with a comfortable salary, benefits, and location. Then came college graduation, or grad school graduation, and each of those former children emerge with bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees and are dumped into the world to make something of themselves, now equipped with a supposedly hard-earned education. A few find those dream jobs; many do not, and as rejection letters fill the trash can, desperation takes the place of any glimmer of ambition and hope and any job becomes that dream job. Before too long, many end up as salesmen or restaurant supervisors or servers. And then comes the day when we look back and wonder how we ended up so far from our dreams. Why is it that the future fireman is now a manager at Chick-fil-A? Why is it that the future musician is delivering mail? Why is it that the future president is now a server at IHOP? Why is it that the future dancer is now a teacher? Some of these changes are the result of simply a change of mind as we progressed from childhood to adulthood. After all, this part of our life is filled with drastic changes and it is only logical that a change in the "dream profession" would be one of them. For how many, though, was the reason for the change simply because it was not practical or because they were too scared or too ill-equipped to try? What it comes down to is that we enter this world as limitless idealists and too often leave it pragmatic professionals. I do not have any grand solutions or memorable pieces of advice here. After all, I am just a college student observing the world from my own limited perspective. I have seen a few soar on the wings of ambition and many crushed under the weight of forsaken dreams. Maybe there is a solution somewhere, some advice that would cut the number of casualties in this war of practicality, where we are drilled in the art of getting by. I do not have it right now and do not even know if it does exist, but I am on the watch for it.


In the meantime, though, this is the journey of our lives. In the end, this is just life; we do the best we can.

Painted Fire

"Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself."

Mark Twain