Back To School

Sometime back in 1993, I remember waiting in a huge line in an old building to wait until someone could type my application information into a computer so I could start junior college.

Last Friday, I was back at the exact same college doing the exact same thing.

It wasn't the same building. The old administration building had been torn down. The building I was standing in had been a parking lot when I was there last.

There wasn't a line to stand in. I took a number and waited for it to come up on a digital display. (My number was 84. When I took it, the numbers were just turning back over to 01.)

But it still felt, in some ways, like a huge step backwards. Like a 15 year step backwards.

It's not, of course. It's the step forwards that I haven't taken since I stopped going to school after my wife became pregnant with our first child.

So it's the step I haven't made for six years.

And it's what's got to be done.

There's a great old quote that I always think about whenever I'm tempted to put this off any longer.

This guy is complaining about why he can't go back to school. "I can't do it! It would take me at least five years to finish, since I'm working full time. In five years, I'll be forty!"

The other guy nods. "How old will you be in five years if you don't go back to school?"

Whatever the elephant is you gotta eat, that's what you got to think about. If it's going to take a year, or two years, or ten years, don't you still want to get there?

Chances are you've got about 70 or so trips around the sun before you check out. Don't you want to spend a few of those where the goal you have is done?

That's what I've told myself. So that's why I'm on it.

It's already been three years since I started this blog and started telling the world I was going to do something about the elephants I gotta eat. It's about time I hunkered down with the fork and knife.

I still plan to blog, but haven't quite figured out how to incorporate it into the schedule. But blogging keeps me honest, so I got to keep coming back.

Anyways, best of luck with your elephants and wish me luck with mine.