7/52 and in that moment, i felt finite

At the ripe young age of 12, I realized life wasn't worth living. I had an unhealthy obsession with Camus. If we, like Sisyphus, expend all our time and energy focusing on our own burdens and hills, then life is indeed meaningless. It nearly drove me to the only rational conclusion for such a philosophy. One night I found myself gazing into the vast night sky. Seeing all the stars dispersed in that infinite space underscored my finitude. And it was in that moment of profound insignificance that I found hope.

Because unlike Sisyphus, we are not necessarily consigned to a futile task. We have a choice. We can be like him. We can choose to focus on the boulder immediately before us, on the great heights to be scaled. But in the end, it will all fall down; we will have toiled for nothing. Or we can allow a truly meaningful purpose capture our lives.

We can take our focus off the boulder immediately before us and instead focus on the rest of the world surrounding us. I don't think any of us can change the world. Even Obama can't. But I do think all of us are capable of at least changing someone else's world.

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" - Psalm 8:3-4, NIV