Mishaps with Monsters

I made a mistake today.   

Well, it ended differently than “mistake” typically implies, so perhaps a “misstep” is more fitting.  I broke nutritious status quo.  I drank a Monster midway through my Tuesday school day. 

And it had quite the effect. 

Now, my mental state entering the Monster-drinking incident was already quite delicate.  Finals week looms on the calendar, an unmoving stress sentence which denies rescheduling.  I tread the slippery slope of apathy in my classes; fewer credits this semester enabled a too-occasional lackadaisical attitude towards academics and learning.  Furthermore, my attitude involved something of a general questioning-of-life, should I be at this school, what if this is all chance, am I wasting my life-type of attitude. 

Yep, just average thoughts on a Tuesday afternoon in November. 

And then I drank the drink.  As a coffee-regular, caffeine normally pumps through my well-conditioned adrenal glands without issue, but this particular can of Rehab had the perfect blend of B-vitamins, Taurine, and Caffeine to send my anxiety and re-thinking and analyzing and general freaking-out into overdrive.  And so, in the middle of Doug Down’s 3:05 p.m. Popular Science Writing for Non-Fiction class, my brain catapulted into:

What if straight out of high school I had pursued a scholarship at Stanford or Columbia or Harvard? If I had worked hard enough, I probably could have gotten one.  What if I should have pushed hard for a different career?  Computer programming, instead of English?  Why did my friend Aaron die?  Why can’t I seem to get over him?  What was it about his light and knowledge, his potential, that I somehow feel lacking without?  What I am wasting ME?  What if Montana State isn’t facilitating my mind in the best possible way?  I see my inner greatness; is it being fostered?  Life is this giant room with so many doors, and we get to choose one.  And what if we should have chosen another, a different route?  What if the engine that operates on an entirely new level with an alternative fuel will not be created because I did not pursue Mechanical Engineering?  Or the case that needed to be won, to change the future of women’s rights, will not be passed because I didn’t go to Law School?  What if I could have made it big in the music industry?  Am I getting the best education I could, here?  Am I empowering myself to the highest extent?  But then there’s also….

You understand, right?  And so my frenzy of thoughts went on.  Class ended at 4:20.  My nervous daydreams followed me out the door.  My anxious questions accompanied me across the courtyard of the English building.  The fearful second-guesses shadowed me through the brick arch, as disorienting and unsteadying as the icy concrete sidewalks.

And then, a friend was waiting to pick me up from school.  One who listened to my flow of fears and thoughts and worries and unanswered questions.  Here I sit now, at my dining room table.  I am coming off my hyper-induced anxiety attack, realizing some core truths of which I needed reminding:

1.      Where I am right now is not by chance.  How prideful I am to assume total control over the circumstances and happenings in my life, as if my current state were the sole work of my doing.  Also wrong is to assume my life is aimless.  There is One who shifts my life each way, with a specific purpose always.

2.      The greatness I seek, to take the world and shake it, is not bound to one career trajectory.  Greatness is a permeating light which can shine through numerous materials, proving extremely difficult to blocked.  If I know God calls me to greatness, I cannot simultaneously believe He can be hindered by any happening in my life.  One the contrary, each event and change must be leading to that greatness (if I give it to Him.)

3.      The facilitation of educational achievement is based less on environment than my personal choice.  Am I engaging my classes?  Am I inviting relationships which feed my intellect and emotional maturity? Am I blessing others, one of the greatest ways to learn?  Greatness is not contained by environment.  If seeking impact, I must first allow other things to impact me.  Namely, God’s truth and my relationship with Him, alongside educational opportunities.

It has been a long day.  It is still going.  There is reading and writing to be done. 

But!

My greatness is not hindered by environment.  It comes down to this: do I trust God, enough to surrender my “best ways” to Him, and accept the present as my opportunity to explore the greatness to be birthed from today?  I did make a mistake today.  I allowed myself to entertain the idea that success in life is on me; Anjeli versus the world.  As if this greatness within was somehow my own doing, or that God would leave in my inept hands.  

That was my Tuesday.