The Line Theory

"Who are you?"

Looking into the mirror and asking the question, "who are you?" can prove enlightening if asked in sincerity, and I often find it a bit startling when I discover something about myself I didn't know I didn't know.

For instance, today I discovered that I find myself living under the philosophy that life and memories are defined by experience, and experience is but a sequence of moments. I strive to make the most of these moments, so that at the end of my life, I will be known not as one who changed the world, but rather one who loved those who were hardest to love. I don't do things so that people will remember me, but rather so that they will remember what I stood for.

They say it's the little things in life that matter, but too many people focus on the wrong little things. And the Line Theory is simply this:

We grow from learning to draw straight lines to waiting in lunch lines;

From obsession over tan lines to laying down the pick-up lines;

From meeting the deadlines to reading the headlines.

Pretty soon your lifeline's coming to an end and the only lines you have to show for it are the ones on your forehead that you've earned from years of chasing the wrong dreams--

drawing lines in the sand to be washed away by the tide, a speck on the timeline.

My only dream is that when the ones I love look back on my life, it will be filled with laughter, the smell of everyone's favorite drinks in their hands, and the sound of "I remember when."

Who am I? With every passing day, I find a new way to answer that very question. Thus is the paradoxical whirlpool in which we find ourselves often circling but never sinking: to presume that I am today the same person I was yesterday, or that I will be tomorrow who I am today, is to presume that I'm not growing--not learning. At the end of each day when I face that fateful pane of polished glass, I can honestly say that the man looking back at me is one step closer to wisdom, discernment and understanding than he was twenty-four hours ago.

And that's a good feeling.

Life makes so much more sense when you understand it.