Earning It.

     Hey! For whatever reason, I can't sleep tonight. Or most other nights, either. Whatever the reason is for my late insomniac awakening (get it?), I've had a lot of time to think. Think about life, my friends, my family, my aspirations. But lately I've been having a lot more late-night sessions where I think about my own psychology, how I think about things and why I think this way. And tonight, as I laid in bed with eyes glued to the ceiling, a line I wrote in another blog of mine came to mind: "I feel like I've earned this view."

    I thought to myself, why does this line feel so significant to me? The idea of earning the sunset at the end of each of my runs is clearly meaningful to me, but I can't shake the feeling that my satisfaction runs deeper than a surface level reward for my effort. Sure, it's a pretty view and I worked for it, but why does the idea of "earning it" make me feel so warm inside, warm to a point where I'm almost uncomfortably hot in my own skin? Am I only just now discovering what its like to accomplish "a hard day's work", even though I really only worked for less than an hour each day? No, I've earned things before. When I was in grade school, I strived to maintain a good report card (at least, while it lasted lol) but I would usually brush it off, because it was expected of me. When I would submit creative writing projects to a competition, or submit them for publishing, I'd feel some happiness at my success, but nothing like what I do now.

    As I've come into my own as a guy living on his own (not quite comfortable with calling myself an adult yet), I feel as if I have seen a new side to the world around me, specifically in the people that I've grown alongside. Coming from a very priveleged neighborhood and background, it was commonplace for people to have many nice things, and to take those things for granted. Hell, I would constantly take things for granted when I was younger, whether it be how lucky I was to have the parents and upbringing I had, or not realizing how lucky I was to have so many LEGOs to play with. But when you grow up, I think there's an expectation to realize how blind you were when you were younger, and find a new appreciation for what you've had in the past and what you have now. Yet some people don't. And this stubborn refusal to acknowledge and be grateful for one's life circumstances drives me a little crazy.

    I think another big factor of my desire to "earn it" is pride. At the end of the day, it isn't enough for me to be well-off. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I deserve it. That it wasn't dumb luck and circumstance that got me to where I am, nor was it by piggybacking off the success and effort of another. My success has to be wholly mine, else it isn't mine to enjoy. I know that this isn't a completely achievable goal: I will always have had an edge thanks to the efforts of my parents in raising me and working in a new country on their own. And they have had the help of their families in raising them, educating them, and supporting them on their endeavors. What I mean to say is that in reality, it is impossible to be completely self-made. I am a mosaic of all who have touched my life in some way. But this knowledge still can't quench the fire within me to "earn it".

    So if it isn't pride, spite, or inexperience with earning something before, then what does drive my desire to "earn it?" I honestly don't know. If I did, then I probably wouldn't be lying awake at night thinking about it, right? It could be any reason, but at the end of the day I don't think it actually matters anyways. As long as I am determined to make my own success in life, who cares what it is that motivates me? If the steam engine chugs along its track, do you question the fuel you feed it? No. You simply continue on your path along the rails. 

    The thing I've realized about "earning it" is that the "it" isn't what really matters to me. I just need to earn, to work, and to deserve whatever it is I want. Because the destination isn't what makes the journey valuable. It's the satisfaction of going on the journey itself.