For What It's Worth

Being in final year has an interesting effect on the mind. Firstly, you feel strangely senior to all of your peers who aren't finishing with you; and at times you feel bad for leaving them, especially when they came in with you. Secondly, the phrase "I don't know" has an eerie frightfulness because the cushion of an incomplete programme erodes to a hard rock that you will land on. And thirdly, there's a lot more reflection on what you have done than there is on what you will do (well in my case).

When I'm finished here, I'll have a first degree. This separates me from a lot of people who have dropped out or just haven't tried. And if I get honours this will further separate me. In life we ascribe value to many things - it's called "prioritization". A degree is worth something, a job is worth something. We make sacrifices based on our perceived value of what we are trying to attain. So I stay up late, fighting sleep, trying to learn a topic for a test. Or I change my diet and run until my heart is just about to faint so that I can lose weight or build muscle and achieve a figure (close to the one I personally have :o) ). I may even go as far as cutting a few friends out of my life so that I can focus on my dreams. These things are not bad in themselves and sacrificing them may make the world of a difference between living a dream and dreaming a life.

John Piper once described a wise man as one whose life makes sense in light of his reality. I had a really weird dream this week which woke me up to my reality. I've been going to school and working, day and night, 6 days a week. I poured myself into my work like it was all that mattered. In fact, all that mattered was my work. Then I had the dream (and no, I won't tell you it). But when I woke I realised that this was not my reality. I'm not a hamster, stuck in a wheel, or a mouse in a maze chasing cheese. My life does not, and will not consist in the abundance of my possessions. In my world the bottom line is not the peak.

So then, really and truly, my life wasn't making sense in light of my reality. I don't live for myself - for the stocks and bonds, or the fame or the Blackberry (or Android or iPhone) or whatever this present world can offer me. In my reality, Christ died for me (and you) so that we will no longer live for ourselves but for him. In my reality maybe we all are hamsters. Maybe there are no men, just mice stuck in a maze chasing some form of cheese. Maybe we all are just slaves who live for their masters. Our masters determine what's important. One says "You can have your pick of the pretty things - everything at once, everything you've seen, everything you'll need, everything you've ever had in fantasies. You've one life left to lead". The other says, "The pagans run after these things...What does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his very self?"

Of course, this doesn't mean that I'll stop working hard at school and trying to be the best I can be. It just means that I don't study at the expense of pleasing my master. I believe that I live for a purpose higher than myself and in doing so I value all else I gain as a loss if my master isn't proud.