The Necessity of Continuous Reflection

 As I’ve brought up repeatedly in previous sections, I believe that in life, we must constantly be on a journey. We need to always have goals and plans for the future; we must embrace our burden as humans to have a proclivity to turn towards sin, and to err from the “straight and narrow path,” as Dr. Peterson calls it.

As humans, we have responsibilities--for me, I have a responsibility to plan for my career, grow my skillet, and take full advantage of the opportunities placed before me at university, both in the daily sense, by finishing homework and studying for tests, as well as in the long-term, by networking with others and understanding career opportunities.

I also have a responsibility to cultivate my character, and to establish habits that are conducive to myself leading a life of responsibility and one that is robust against temptation. When I look at my parents, I admire them for their ability to cooperate with each other, overcome tensions, and maintain civility in the household.

I plan to, upon reaching a stable point in my career, marry and lead a household, just as my parents raise and have raised me and my brother. At that point, my responsibilities would be leading my children and cooperating with my wife, responsibilities that I feel are responsibilities that are central to humanity.

But why take on responsibility? Why not try to slither through life’s strong but slippery grasp, and flee the searching hold of responsibility? To answer this, I’ll start with a rather personal realization. I have a strong feeling within me that the undertaking of responsibility should not something that is pursued for pleasure. There are two voices within me--one that seeks out a continuous stream of fun and pleasure, and the other that is more pursued and more centered on more meaningful, long-term pursuits. The first voice is impulsive, and what makes difficult goals difficult. Undertaking a vow of meditation is difficult, because the act of meditation necessitates the sacrifice of more preferable alternatives in pursuit of the more meaningful goal.

No, responsibility cannot be inherently fun. For if we were to undertake responsibility for the sake of pleasure, would we not abandon it at the first hint of distaste? Whether it be this difficulty that makes responsibility meaningful to us, or some deeper factor that drives both our difficulty and sense of meaning.

Especially since I have started a daily lifestyle, I have started to feel that days are shorter than I thought. Days become more similar to each other in many ways. Waking up doing the same thing, sleeping following the same routine, following the same daily exercise routine, keeping track of my time and reflecting in the same way, playing chess every day, attempting to spend 10 minutes of mindful time daily.

My days have become similar to each other in many ways and the differential of improvement or regression in my strength, compassion, calmness, productivity, and kindness are only manifested clearly over time. As a consequence of this similarity, perhaps consciously pushing myself to focus on my short-term goals (i.e. those that take place over the span of few days, rather than within one day) would be more useful.