The Meandering Mind

Tag: blogging

  • Want vs. Ought: Discovering Life’s True Path

    When we are kids, we often dream of what our futures will hold. We dream of being doctors, police officers, race car drivers, all of what we as children consider the coolest and best jobs. As we grow older, we gain experience in life what we want to do tends to change. I personally still struggle with what I want to do with my life. For years I have always gone back and forth from one crazy idea to another, believing that I was destined for something great, but not long after beginning to attempt to pursue these great things I come across roadblocks. I struggle to find my personal drive to continue pursuing these things. It is almost maddening.

    So, I did what came easy to me which was being a mechanic and fabricator. I love fixing mechanical things as well as welding and creating things. I started learning how to weld when I was in middle school, and throughout my life have learned most of the various welding processes. I managed to find a job working on semi-trucks and trailers. Over the course of thirteen years I was able to learn everything from federally required testing on tanker trailers to repairing the engines of the trucks. Having the ability to repair everything involved with semi-trucks from the engines, brakes, product pumps, hydraulic systems, electrical, and pneumatic systems. Having such a large understanding of all systems on a semi-truck made it very easy to find work. Over time I have lost my drive, I lost the love for it. Part of it has to be because it seems like no matter how fast you finish something it is not fast enough. The customers you deal with have a tendency to want everything done yesterday, and for as cheap as possible. When you go as cheap as possible with repairs they generally don’t last very long, and that is when the customer comes back mad. At that point the customer no longer wants to pay for the repairs, they want it done right and they want the mechanic or the shop to cover the cost. Over the years that really began to weigh on me, it makes me feel as if I’m not a good mechanic. I have worked with many mechanics that are still turning wrenches in their sixties and seventies due to the fact there is not much opportunity for mechanics to move up in to management positions or other positions where you are valued more for what you know than what you can physically accomplish. Yes, before someone comes after me, there are companies that are good about promoting mechanics to these positions, but these companies are hard to get into and you need to work there for many years. This is just my experience. Once I got to a point where I dreaded going to work at any shop, I knew I needed to find a new path.

    The path I decided to take was going to college. So here I am at thirty-eight years old a freshman in college pursing a degree in philosophy. The reason why I chose to major in philosophy is because throughout my life when I am struggling to find my place in the world I turned to reading philosophy. I feel there is so much useful information provided in so many philosophical writings. It is almost calming for me. The first philosophy book I ever picked up was “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down. I started highlighting passages as well as taking notes on different parts that I found. I started journaling and trying to actually apply the things that I read about. Now that I am in college, I have developed a mentor/mentee relationship with my philosophy professor. The other day I asked if it would be possible for us to meet up and talk. As our conversation progressed it eventually led to me mentioning how I don’t know what I want to do with my life. That is when my professor hit me with a statement that started to make the lightbulb in my brain flicker. He said that I need to stop trying to think of what I want to do and instead be asking myself what I ought to do with my life. This is the type of statement that is so profound it could only come from a philosopher.

    You may be asking yourself what the difference between what you want to do and what you ought to do. Well, you are not alone because I found myself asking the same question. Like most people these days I turned to Google to help me figure it out. “Want” implies a desire or a wish; that makes sense because you “want” to be healthy. “Ought to” expresses a sense of moral obligation; we ought to be empathetic to others. Now that clarifies what the difference is between the two but leaves the question what my moral obligation to the world is. Moral obligation is often referred to as a duty when you read different philosophies. In Christianity these duties would be the ten commandments. If you follow Aristotle’s teachings from Nicomachean Ethics your duty is to live a virtuous life. According to Aristotle the way to that is thru what is referred to as the “golden mean”. The “golden mean” refers to finding excellence in the middle between deficiency and excess. To find the mean between deficiency and excess, in my opinion, requires experience.

    If my moral obligation is to learn philosophy inside and out, what can I do with that? According to my mentor there is a place for philosophy majors in every profession. The thing about philosophy is that it teaches you more of how to think not what to think. It gives you the skill to look at the world in a very different light. My hope is that as I continue through my education, I can find the drive to excel in all of my classes and not just philosophy. That means I need to dig deep and find the drive to push through all of the moments I don’t want to do anything. As someone who has always struggled with ADHD it gets very difficult to stay focused and push through some of my moods. Since I really enjoy writing, and I seem to have a passion for philosophy is a combination of the two my moral obligation? I guess as of right now only time will tell, and I hope that if writing and philosophy are what I am supposed to be pursuing I will receive some sign from the universe. If you have taken the time to completely read this thank you. I know in today’s world everyone is very busy trying to make it, so everyone who takes the time out of their day for this I really do appreciate you.

  • What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

    For myself I believe that the biggest challenge most of us will face over the next six months is the same. The biggest challenge is to stick to the changes that we wish to make in life. For me, I always can dream big and think of different places in the world I would like to be. Yet I still find myself mindlessly scrolling through social media or YouTube videos. Not doing anything to achieve these dreams. Just wasting my time watching other people pursue their dreams and tell me how to pursue my own. While it is often important, in my own opinion, to find inspiration and input from people who have traveled the road you are wanting to travel. But you can’t allow the search for answers consume all of the time you have to chase this dream of yours. One thing I have found in life is that sometimes the best thing you can do is throw caution to the wind and jump into something feet first. Just go out on a limb and pursue your crazy dream when it first comes to mind.

    Now I am in no way, shape, or form advocating for you to blindly quit your job and chase your dream of being an underwater basket weaver. What I am saying is once you develop the dream take some time to research what all is needed for this dream to come to fruition. Then once you have a basic understanding take it another step. Start the process of making this dream reality. For instance, I have considered writing professionally multiple times throughout my life. Yet, I never took any steps towards making it a reality. I just automatically assumed that to be a writer you had to come from some kind of specific background, or that it was something you just knew you were going to be from a young age. It also didn’t help that my parents would tell me that writers actually have full time jobs. Yes, that is true, some writers do have full time jobs. But much like other professions you have to start somewhere. There are writers who still hold full time jobs no matter how successful their writing becomes because writing for them is just a hobby they are passionate about. Then you have people who want to write professionally but only get to do it as a hobby because they just aren’t very good, or they haven’t taken the risks required to get their work out there. I would like writing to become my career, I hope that my skills are good enough to gain some recognition and find an audience that enjoys it enough I can do it full time. The freedom to come and go from places as I please, the opportunity to get paid for the knowledge I have, and to have my thoughts on topics seen by the masses drives me to want to do this.

    Like most other new endeavors, it is going to take a conscious effort to make this grow into something I can be proud of. The next six months will really show how dedicated I am to this, and if this is truly something I want to do. If by the end of this six months I have lost interest it will be obvious. Now I know that at the end of six months I won’t likely be able to quit my day job and focus only on this but if there manages to be a rising trend in views coming to the site and I am continually finding things to write about then I will gladly continue to do what it is I am doing here. I hope if you have read this and would like to see more, please leave a comment or a like. Thank you, I hope you have a fantastic day! Keep chasing your dreams!