Doing random interesting things is fun!

This past week I've been feeling down, and I think part of the reason is that my life is becoming too routine. I've been following a regular schedule of going to the library, working out, playing basketball, reading and thinking just enough for my research; even hanging out with friends has become routine, dominated by weekly catch-up meals. Parallel to this is my spiritual stagnation, but that may be a separate issue.

I think that this is because I'm too engrossed in the immediate: the next homework assignment, the next meeting with research advisers, what do I want to in the next week or month. But if I ask myself the question--what do I want to do in the next 3 years--the list of responses is much more interesting: learn to draw watercolor, read XXX books, pick up piano again and learn to improvise, learn to sing, pick up poetry, come up with some cool earth-shaking theory, do something concrete about causes I believe in such as environmental protection, etc. But it's simple logic that if I live in the "immediate"-mode that I am currently in, I will NEVER do the things that I really want to do in the next 3 years. My priorities are inconsistent with themselves.

In a way, this is understandable because the human brain cares more about the now. Hence, to correct for my predisposition to focus on short-term things, I need to set time apart to do random interesting things I like.

For example, today, I watched some shows I wanted to see for a while, and practiced piano for the first time in almost 3 years! It was nice to enter Biddle for the first time and discovered such an amazing sheet music library and all these practice rooms with Steinway grands! I realized how much I need to work on. I tried some music that I used to play at competitions but couldn't even sightread slowly without stopping. The semi-recognizable melody and chords brought back so many memories thought, and it reminded me that I actually love music. (I used to play piano 3 hours a day and I think I might have shed a tear in middle school when I thought I was banned from taking out violins.) The other nice things is I found sheet music to all this fobby music I used to sing at Karaoke so I can try to sing at the same time! All these goals that seemed unrealistic are now doable! It's nice to feel that life is moving forward again.

Alright, now I will try to fix my program for this online stock trading competition (with legit prizes), before I have to leave for last night of tenting. Life seems so much funner!