going other ways- epiphany en route

So today, the bus I was riding and have ridden since I was a very small child did the absolutely bizarre for the first time: it turned another direction. Yes, it eventually got back on track and continued down Jamaica Ave like it usually does, but at first I wasn't sure whether I had gotten on a completely different bus. I desperately desired to shout at the bus driver "Stop! Where are you going? Go the normal way, friend!", but I did not because I "wisely" guessed that since the route number was what it was on the front, I had best keep quiet and let the driver do his job to get us where we needed to go at a faster pace. By trusting him, we did end up getting there much faster than if we had stayed in traffic like most drivers would have. I realized that this driver amongst all drivers realized that above all things, a bus is a vehicle. It can go wherever you want, and invariably, it can also get back on track. 

Epiphany moment: if everyone in the world realized that there were other ways to get to the same point, then everyone would get where they wanted to go much faster. 

This is really relevant to my life right now, particularly in finding a successful career, which indubitably leads to a successful life, as the world knows. Many people assume that the first, best, and only way to be successful is to go to Ivies and get big-shot jobs. Now, I'm not knocking the success of the Ivies, but I am saying that not everyone is going to get into Stanford or Harvard or Yale. It's mathematically impossible. Sometimes, we have to get creative. Sometimes, we have to think about other places that can help enrich our lives and help us achieve our goals. If your goal is to go to an Ivy simply because you like Ivies, hey, have fun. But don't apply with it as your only choices; don't think that if you don't get in, the world will stop, because it won't, and you will be left picking up the pieces with no other game plan.

It's like the SAT problem I was doing today. It asked how many different ways could one get to point C without touching A or B. I only saw the two obvious wide-berth answers, but a friend pointed out to me that there were also two more that brought you closer to the point you weren't supposed to be, but then veered away.

Mini-epiphany: If everyone realized that approaching the not-goal is not failure, but another way to get to the goal,
A. A lot more people would be a lot better at math

B. People would not spending their lives getting the wrong answer.

Wrong answer, how so? As in, when one plugs in the right numbers into the equation, and you're still getting ø. Why does that happen? Did you consider the limit? Or did you continuously try to get to infinity without approaching zero? Sometimes, life is like that, man. You have to take the chance sometimes. You can't always approach your goals the clean way. Besides, you have better stories for your grandkids when you can tell them how crazy your life was when you were working hard to get where you wanted to go.

Well, the epiphany was nice. I guess it's time for me to use this epiphany in conjunction with the leaves and get on with my life.

Foliage Epiphany

Today I swept leaves.

Usually this would not be cause for a celebration on blogspot, but today was different.

I had an epiphany.

It was really exciting.


I suddenly understood the order of things in my life, and in life in general. I began to spin a metaphor as I swept the leaves. Sweeping leaves is like writing an essay, or doing anything orderly in general. First, you start by choosing where you want to begin sweeping, much like you choose what you want to write about. You narrow down the spot from say, the yard, to the front yard right in front of the house in particular. That's your thesis. So at first, there's just so many leaves all over the place that you end up kinda sweeping from everywhere, because there's just so much mess you can't quite figure out what system you're going to use to do the job right. That's your rough draft, you know, the spewing of your ideas onto a piece of paper. Then, when you see what is working and what is not, you can decide where to begin. You begin closest to the curb, sweeping the leaves onto the street because there are just some leaves that are NOT going to get picked up. You're not Superman. Similarly, you decide that some of the crap you just plopped on that paper isn't worth writing about at all. OK, so now that you've done that, you can begin to form the clumps that you know you're going to pick up. Say hello to your body paragraph outline. Hello.

Right. So now that you've done that, you check meticulously to make sure you haven't left five leaves astray in one place. That's bad form. You decide, do I want to sweep this to the curb, or is this close enough to my clump that I don't have to put in too much effort and can safely pick it up? Now that you've decided how much work you're willing to do to either put it in the clump or kick it to the curb, you begin pickup. As with anything you do where something can fall out, i.e. your dustpan, you bring your garbage bag close. You carefully pick up as many leaves as you can without losing the majority, and easily empty it into your garbage bag. Welcome to the end of your body paragraphs, and also your conclusion. How much can you say without being redundant? How much can you say without being precise or succinct? Great, you've made some decisions. Sometimes, you'll bite off more than you can chew, which just means that you'll have much more to clean up and more time to waste. If you're sweeping and it's a nice day and you're not pressured, this is fine. But when you see the rain clouds of your deadline coming, you'd better get it as correctly as you can the first time.

Right then. You've picked it all up. You give it the once-over. It seems okay. You go up and down the parameters of the area. You see a couple of leaves that could easily be thrown to the curb. You do so. You are glad now. Everything is neat. You give it it the twice-over. How could you have missed that humongous leaf right there! You pick it up with your hands and move it to the curb. You get down and dirty. It's cool though, now it looks really neat. You see that there are a couple of really small leaves that are sort of looking at you and staring you down. You ignore them, because you can't get everything. Besides, more leaves are bound to fall. You'll save it for next time.

During your cleanup, people have been walking by. What do you do? You say "Good morning." And they say "Good morning." And everything is well and good, because sometimes you have to take a break when your hand is getting too itchy to hold a broom or to type any more words on the keyboard. You stop, but only for a little while. You must keep your momentum. You must see your project through. And then, you invite people to look at your handiwork. Because it looked damn good until the wind blew again and you had another deadline.