Pursuing Design

rei·fi·ca⋅tion [re-fi- ka-shun] - to convert abstract into or to regard to as a concrete thing

no⋅tion  [noh-shuh] – concept or idea

I’ve heard so many times in my life that you should live your life to accomplish your goals. I’ve heard ever since elementary school that you should set goal after goal to improve certain aspects of your life.  Society leaves us with the notion that by accomplishing our goals our lives will somehow become better in return leaving us happier. As i’ve grown older, thought about it a lot more, and lived my life i’ve realized that honestly it’s actually the complete opposite. Firstly, accomplishing a goal just makes you want to set a new goal which creates a vicious cycle of trying to accomplish goal after goal never finding an end to the madness. This continues to happen until you finally find that end which isn’t really the end to the question you had at all. Suddenly you’ve accomplished either everything you’ve ever dreamed of or that you’ve accomplished absolutely nothing. Now the only thing you’re left with wondering is what’s next or that you’re suddenly a failure.

During difficult times in my life, I was constantly questioning why I wasn’t getting what I thought I deserved and why things were going the way that they were going. Why wasn’t I living up to the expectations that I expected of myself? Nothing was going right and at that point it felt like nothing would ever go right. Everything rapidly became depressing, like the end of the world. It became really hard to see the end of the tunnel. Then again, can’t you just call that teenage angst? If you call that teenage angst then why is it then that people who aren’t teenagers go through those same exact things on a daily basis? Why is it that when people grow older they wish they could embody the person they were when they were younger? Why do so many people live and thrive on the people they were in high school and remember those days as the good old days when in reality, those were only four years of their entire lives? Those 1,460 days that were spent in high school suddenly become the epitome of our existence trying to find the people we once were. The reason why? Those were the days that surrounded us with change. Those were the days that some people credit to the very person that they are today. The people they don’t want to be.

What I learned through those difficult times in my life was that things are constantly destined to change. Sometimes things had changed so subtly and practically incomprehensible that I didn’t even notice the difference. Things that I loved slipped away and I became left with the question of what exact moment did things change? But that’s just like asking the questions at what time does the moon begin waxing instead of waning and at what exact moment in time do we start dying instead of growing? Looking at it simply, we are bodies of molecules living in a constant state of fluctuation waiting to be acted upon by the things we love and hate the most. We’re constantly searching for a way to pursue design before we run out of time. What was it that I learned exactly? That trying to find out the reason why is not what it’s about.

I was so busy trying to figure out what was wrong that I didn’t see what was exactly in front of my face and I was forgetting the things that I loved the most. Everything became so materialistic that I began defining myself with what I had and not who I really was. What you have doesn’t define you, but how you change; react to those changes, and the decisions that you make define who you really are. People get so encased and obsessed with money, power, success, fame and material times that they miss the whole big picture.

What gives people the will to live? What gives people the will to want to make things better? The same will to get out of bed every morning during difficult times? Hope. It’s the hope that one day things will be better. It’s the same hope that things will somehow improve. The unquestionable hope that you’ll make a positive impact in someone else’s life. When you live your life according to material things such as money, success, and fame you don’t receive hope because those things are simply incapable of giving hope. Setting goals is only capable of giving you hope that maybe one day you can accomplish them. They give you a false impression and reality of hope. It gives you the hope that if you accomplish it, you will receive the answer that you’ve been looking for. It’s a commercial selling you a product giving you a brief moment of satisfaction. But what happens when that hope is gone? Unexpectedly, you’re left with nothing. You reach the end and now you’re left with the ghosts of the pasts that left legacies that you suddenly feel the need to understand. You suddenly become left with looking for a reason to live. What then becomes the point of living?

I think that we get so wrapped up in everything that we forget our inspirations and I don’t think that we give them enough credit. Unlike goals, inspirations give people unlimited amounts of hope with new and old ways of making their ways into our lives. Inspiration is simply defined as a “divine influence directly and immediately exerted upon the mind or soul.” Inspiration grows, progresses and it changes to fit the constant change in us. Our inspirations give us a reason to live even when all other hope has been destroyed. They give us that feeling of being on cloud nine and that we can’t be touched, like we’re doing something with our lives.  It makes us feel emotions that maybe otherwise we never would have felt. One of the best parts about it is that they’re there even through the storms and the clouds. Like stars, even when it’s stormy and we can’t see them, they’re there. 

Contrary to popular belief, inspiration doesn’t have to be this whole big production. I think that people miss the entire point of inspiration because they think it has to be this whole big thing that will change the course of your entire life. Inspiration can simply be seeing a picture that makes you feel something, listening to a song that makes you feel something, playing a sport, helping out at a soup kitchen, and pretty much anything that gives you a feeling. The other best part it? Only YOU can define what inspires you. Finding your inspirations and getting involved with them makes you a part of something bigger than yourself. When you become inspired you can’t help but show it in everything you do, even if it’s the little things like talking about a fluorescent light bulb you saw in a dark bathroom that you thought was cool.

Living your life for your inspirations will truly make you a happier person because you’re constantly being surrounded by the things that you love the most. But it’s important to find a balance with things you have to do that help you survive and make it in the world. Obviously, you need to have shelter, a job, a plan on how you get there and so forth, but it’s all about function over form. Having a nicer car than somebody else, doesn’t make you a better person then them. Unfortunately, you can’t live your life following your inspirations and doing only the things you love to do, because that’s just not practical. It’s doing what you need to do, with finding the time to make room for your inspirations.

I’ve been called crazy several times for saying that one day I’m going to pick up my stuff on a random day and go somewhere.  As to where, I’m not exactly sure but in past times the chosen destination was always California. Now I think Seattle, or Chicago, or Florida, or wherever it may be. I’m going to try to live there for at least a year and go out there with nothing but some saved money, a car, clothes, a laptop, and that’s it. Somehow I’m going to try to find a way to live and go about normally daily routines such as getting a job, finding a place to shower, and eventually a permanent residence for my stay there. I would be setting myself up for failure, and some would call it crazy, but I would call it one of the most amazing experiences I would probably experience in my entire life. At first it would be hard, trying to find places to sleep, shower, trying to find a job and knowing no one. Society would call it crazy to put oneself through that. But I think the reward of coming out of it and knowing that you survived it whether you failed or succeeded would make it more than worth it. I have my whole life ahead of me, and taking one year out of it, wouldn’t be so bad. Inspiration would be the only thing that would get me through it and I would be left alone only with thoughts for the majority of the beginning and possibly a lap top. One day I hope to do that, but if I don’t, that’s okay too. Because just thinking about it is inspiring. Not setting goals and not being confined, is inspiring.

Living your life to live for your inspirations lets you do whatever it is that you want and leaves you with a satisfied feeling of happiness that absolutely no one can take away from you. You should always remember they’re there, even through the storms and the rough times. Make time for them, even when you feel like you can’t, because inspirations make you happy. Inspirations make you feel even when you think you’re numb. There is a misconception that setting yourself up for failure is bad, but really, it gives you experience and knowledge that otherwise you would never know. You can take chances, and they may fail, but as long as your inspirations stay with you, it doesn’t matter. Failure doesn’t matter, as long as you try your hardest, because that’s the best that you can do.

Ever since I started living my life through inspirations, i’ve become a lot happier. Just thinking about inspiration makes me happier and now I can’t even comprehend how before, I couldn’t see how I thought that life wasn’t going to possibly get any better. Thinking about your inspirations gives you hope for a new day and that maybe you’ll make an impact on someone’s life. My biggest fear is one day waking up one morning and realizing that i’ve never made a positive impact on someone else’s life.

 Goals are supposed to be a way to improve yourself and sometimes you need them to improve yourself, but that’s all that is. All you’re doing is simply improving yourself. Accomplishing a goal doesn’t give you what we as human beings need to live and survive. It becomes a cycle to lie and forget, forget and lie, lie to forget, and then forget to lie.  There is this notion that you can lie and forget the pain. Forget about the pain and lie to continue it. The stress continues so you lie to forget about the pain until suddenly it embodies your very existence and now you’re forgetting to lie.  There’s a play on the words and even though the words stay the same the entire meaning changes. Change happens slowly, so slowly that from one stage to the next you can barely notice the difference until the result is already there.

 Goals are meant to help improve what people look at as flaws that inflict even the most miniscule pain on yourself or others. Inspirations celebrate those flaws and turn them into something greater than you could possibly ever imagine.  Inspiration not only enables you to do something you want to do but it gives you a greater feeling that only you can put into words. Inspiration is seen in everything you do, and it inspires the life of other people both directly and indirectly. Goals end when you die, because you’re no longer here to accomplish them but our inspirations don’t leave stories that wait for endings.  They’ll be seen in everything you’ve ever done, even after you’re gone, acting in the lives of someone else.

So that’s what this is. This is my “Reification of Notion.”

 ”So love eleven and keep sh-t simple. You will find a different kind of peace.”