Week Four: I Got Nothing.

On Monday, my friend and I lay outside on a blanket, ready to just hang out.  We had planned on cloud gazing, figuring that would be fun, and while there were none directly overhead, there were clouds in a circle around us, at the edges of our tree and building created horizon.

Eventually, we figured, they would move over us.  We were, however, thoroughly duped by nature itself.  The clouds all seemed to move farther out, not closer!  As a result, we spent forty five minutes with not a cloud in the sky.

In other words, we got nothing.

All conditions were right.  It should have occurred.  But there was nothing there, the entire time.  And the funny thing is?

Half a mile away, there was a spot on campus, right under the clouds.  I had seen it earlier. It wasn’t far, and we both could have hoped on our bikes and been there in minutes, but we didn’t.

We got nothing.  But we didn’t exactly try hard to get anything.  Even though we knew what we wanted was not far away at all.

I think that’s the thing that I got from it.  We put nothing into the cloud gazing, just expecting what we wanted to come to us.

Instead, our goal stayed where it was, and we spent 45 minutes, pointing out the occasional bird, or bug…or the rim of our glasses.

Life, like cloud gazing, won’t just hand you what you want.  You have to put some effort into it.  Even if it seems like it should be an easy task, you have to put something into it.

And when you do?  When you do, you get an amazing experience in return, all for what is in comparison, not much at all.

I complain about tuition rates, rather more often than I should.  But for those prices, I get an excellent education, get to know some great minds in my field, gain connections to people I may one day work for or with, and a whole lot of other things.  There are weekly concerts or comedians here for crying out loud, all free to the students.  I get internet access, a free gym membership with any number of classes to help get me in shape, and a fitness advisor, who will help me figure out exercises I can and cannot do, and let me know when I should do them and how often!

I get a lot, for that tuition.  For the effort put into gaining the money for it?  I get easily quadruple my effort’s worth.  Even if the bill does hurt to pay.

One Final Byte: Life isn’t easy, if you put nothing in.