33

On July 27th, I turned 33 years old.  As a Christian, the age of 33 has a special significance.  After all, that is the age of Jesus when he died.  To think that He accomplished all of His work on earth by the age of 33 is truly remarkable.  Few can claim to have affected the world as much as Jesus. So, I am reflecting on my life and accomplishments as I turn 33.  I find that while I have accomplished many important goals, I still have not nearly reached my potential yet.
     I am very glad that I am very happily married, have lived for three years in Japan, made a few wonderful friends, finished college, graduate school, traveled in Europe and Asia, am working rewarding and meaningful jobs, and am living in California, close to where I want to be.  But I still feel that I have so much more to accomplish and much more work do to better this world.
     Jesus is an example of someone who accomplished a great deal in a short lifetime.  There are others.  I only hope that I am able to accomplish what I can in the years to come.  I hope and pray that I am able to make more of a positive impact in the world.  That is my ultimate goal.  As I turn 33 I am glad to say, upon reflection, I am on the path to achieving my goals, but it seems I have a long way to go.

Life Begins to Look Up

After losing my full-time job, I was quite depressed for some time.  My sales job certainly wasn’t doing much for me – I really didn’t like working in sales but the people were nice and it was (almost) paying the bills.  After losing that job, I was left in a bad situation. We have no car. Local places didn’t want to hire me because of that fact. Further away in San Francisco or Oakland, they didn’t care that I didn’t have a car – but they thought that I lived too far away.  It was a difficult position.  Slowly, however things began to look up in my life.  I was hired by another teaching/tutoring center and was able to get a few more hours working at my other tutoring center.  I really enjoy teaching children and it is very satisfying and meaningful work.  Now, I am in much better spirits.  Although I am only working part time, my hourly rate is quite good.  Even better, I get to teach kids Science and we are reading the Hobbit (Tolkien is my favorite author of fiction.) Once I started working again, the writing bug finally hit me again.  The urge to write hit me with a vengeance.  I haven’t been so motivated to write anything in about 8 or 9 years.  So now, I tutor in the morning, then take the bus to the local Peet’s coffee house where I spend several hours writing.  I am working on a science fiction novel.  I am expanding upon a short story that I wrote back in 2001 for my Philosophy class: The Self in Science Fiction and Science Fact.  I am excited about this work and am putting a lot of myself and my philosophical ideas into it.
     In many ways, for me, it is like being back in 1997-1998 when I was working part time, and spending the rest of the day at the coffee house reading philosophy and doing some writing. Only this time, it is better. I have meaningful jobs, and best of all, this time I am happily married.  Things are certainly looking up for us.  Now if we can only move to the city…