“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11
artwork by Alisha N. (moi) and Nathan B. (fellow JAARS senior)
The Search for Significance
“Human beings develop elaborate defense mechanisms to block pain and gain significance. We suppress emotions; we are compulsive perfectionists; we drive ourselves to succeed, or withdraw and become passive; we try to say clever things to be accepted; we help people so that we will be appreciated.”
That fleeting feeling
Teaching English in China
In case you haven’t yet heard, I’m planning a trip to China this summer! I’ll be teaching English and loving kids.
Trip information is posted here (CHINA 2013 page).
To stay updated about my trip to China this summer, bookmark http://YouCaring.com/China2013.
Thoughts on Careers
Arbitrary
When I finished sixth grade (May 2007), I deliberately considered which careers I would and would not do when I grew up. It makes me laugh now. And as you can see, I didn’t make much progress with the OK’d list.
I will NOT do anything that has to do with…
- Trying to figure out what happened and what humans, animals, or plants were alive centuries ago, because we should concentrate on the future, not the past (examples: cryptologist, paleontologist, archeologist)
- Killing or harming animals (example: butcher, game warden)
- Wasting natural resources or affiliating with companies who do (examples: ore miner, gas station filler, oil rig operator)
- Forensics, police work, or detective work
- Working as a judge or jury member, or anything having to do with court and law
- Sin (examples: casino worker, beer/alcohol store owner… assassin)
- Fast food, because it just makes people fat
But I will…
- Be beneficial to the world (examples: technology developer, architect, engineer)
- Enjoy the job I have
- Glorify God
Inconclusive
Halfway through my first year of high school (January 2009), I again pondered the career question:
What is a career?
A way to make money, to survive in this world? A way to leave your name in history books or on everyone’s lips? A way to “find happiness”? A way to spend the days of your life? A way to daily impact the people around you in profound ways? A way to simply help the world, either ecologically or personably [pretty sure I made up that word]? A way to showcase the achievements (or failures) of humankind?
A career consumes the lifetime you’ve been given.
Gladwell’s
And yesterday, as I near the conclusion of high school, I came across this account of Malcolm Gladwell’s experience with careers:
“Writing was the thing I ended up doing by default, for the simple reason that it took forever to realize that writing could be a job. Jobs were things that were serious and daunting. Writing was fun.”
(from What the Dog Saw, a collection of essays from The New Yorker)
