What matters? At some point we must all choose for ourselves. Our whole lives will be spent making decisions. Our decisions have consequences. Should I complete my homework or go play? What might happen if I try to kiss this girl? Where should I go to school? For what profession should I study? Who do I want to be? What will make me happy?

One particular question has vexed me since I was a teenager. It is not a particularly unique question. Far from it, it is one that we will all, many times in the course of our lives, ask. What will I do with my life? The options, as I have weighed them, are as follows: Will I devote myself to a woman that loves me, to the neglect of all else will I invest my time, my energies, whatever moneys I may ever possess? Or do I labor in solitude to amass for myself a great mountain of titles, professional accomplishments, trips, cars, luxuries to make my ancestors blush and my neighbors turn green with envy? I realize that it is possible to find a middle ground here. People seem to do it all the time. Some will find love and will lead a perfectly content life having never pushed to see just where there limit was. They are content to know that they are loved and desired by another human person for whom they themselves care equally deeply. On the other side, and it is a great fear of mine, is the professional in isolation. Surrounded by sycophants and admirers of material, they may never know what real friendship, real love, is. I fear desperately that for all my efforts to the contrary, I cannot shake off my attachment to the latter. I shudder at the thought that I will end up alone because I neglected everyone else in order to get ahead. On the other hand, I cannot seem to satisfy myself with the idea that I could work a stable forty hour job and come home to someone dear.

I thought I had learned my lesson. Material is nice, a certain modicum thereof is all but essential to live. There is, however, no substitute for love and being loved.
I know it to be true, and yet, when faced with the choice, real or imagined, of one over the other, whether by youth or inexperience or ignorance or ambition or greed or just plain stupidity, I always seem to choose work.
Is it that I have not learned my lesson? Is it that I cannot learn this lesson. How could it possibly be that what I felt was not indeed the love I still profess? I cannot fathom that that could be the case.

This question may very well be the one that I am destined to confront so long as I may live. My one hope, should that be the case, is that I can spare the ones I profess to love the hurt that I suppose I will inevitably cause them.

Be mindful of your choices. Be careful with your words. Treasure the ones you love in every instance that you can. There are enough cruelties in this world to try to take them from you without your neglect. Do not miss the opportunity to remind those around of the value they have imparted on you. You may not always know exactly what their contribution is or has been. They may not know themselves. It is there all the same.