Carpe Diem

I have this problem. I tend not to seize the day. Awhile ago in church I was thinking about this, and these thoughts extended throughout the day and on into Monday.

Monday morning at our weekly staff meeting, the person leading the devotional took us to 1 Corinthians. And in my Bible, sometime, I don't remember when, at the bottom of the page, I wrote "God makes us excellent - with him we reach higher."

This blog, this isn't a place where I tend to get theological. In every day life I don't even tend to get very theological. I wouldn't even say I was very theological in my 5 1/2 years of Bible college and seminary education. I don't tend to be interested in debating the nit-picky details of faith. Perhaps this is to my detriment. I know what I believe but I can't say I'm too interested in amillenialism and premillenialism and Calvinism and Armenianism and the like.

But I digress. Usually in life I don't consider doing a shoddy job. Why wouldn't you do a good job? The thought doesn't usually occur to me. Striving higher, striving for the best, it seems in so many things to come naturally to me. But this often conflicts with my apathy.

In my first couple of years of Bible college I was diagnosed with Graves' Disease, an autoimmune disorder of the thyroid. There are all kinds of signs and symptoms (just reading that Wikipedia article today even listed a few I noticed that I had never been told were a result of the disease!), and what I noticed mostly was the change in my thought processes and patterns.

While I was sick, I had an extremely hard time concentrating and doing schoolwork for any extended periods of time. This is reflected in my college transcripts, which went from barely passing my first couple of sick years, to (mostly) excellent marks in my grad studies.

Today, what I have lingering from this disease is apathy. I want to do the best. I want to excel. It seems so logical. So normal. But sometimes it takes so much effort.

Lately I've been thinking about excellence and passion a lot. How much they are related to each other. I want to be excellent at what I do, but I also want to be passionate about it. But can you become passionate, or is passion natural? Is it inflicted? Does God breath upon us passion for different things?

I once read a book in high school called "Do What You Are" or some such title. It talked about how our career should be directly related to what we are, who we are, what we love, what we're passionate about.

I've been rather apathetic towards my current career. Perhaps that's a dangerous thing to admit on a blog that your co-workers read! I'd like to be more passionate, but how, and is it worth it? It's paperwork. Should I be looking elsewhere? Should I be looking for something that will use my passions and love of Christ and love of youth and my training?

Carpe diem. Seize the day.