Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Quotes, quotes, quotes!

So recently I've become a fan of cool inspirational quotes. I know, you're thinking, "How lame is this guy? I read that first post and he sounded so awesome, but now I'm not so sure." Well, if that's what you're thinking, then I don't know how to assuage your concern. But, since this is my blog, I'm going to ramble about a few things that I like to talk about. So hold onto your hats, buckle your seatbelts, and enjoy the ride!

I left you last with a little one of my personal favorite quotes, so if you're too lazy to scroll up to the last post, I'll just restate it here:
"Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things." - Denis Diderot
That's the quote that's at the bottom of the information cards that I handed out to most of my orientation groups, so if it looks familiar, then give a little shout and rep good ol' group 7! Denis Diderot was a French philosopher -- whatever your biases against the French, and I know that a lot of Americans have some -- put them aside for a little while. Diderot was a prominent thinker during the Enlightenment, so he might be a familiar name to other people who haven't read my information cards.

But that's neither here nor there...

The subject of this quote -- passion -- is one of my favorite topics. My basic philosophy in life lines up pretty much parallel with this quote in that I've realized that I will accomplish nothing if I am not passionate about what I'm doing. I spent the majority of my first year in college trying to make it mirror my senior year of high school. Not such a good idea...I got way too involved in way too many things, without realizing that I was stretching myself too thin. I overcommitted to a few organizations, and it came back to hurt me during my second year. When I finally realized that I didn't have the desire to commit my time to those clubs, I found that it was much more difficult to quit them than it should have been. Because I had gotten so heavily involved -- executive boards and committees -- during freshman year, I couldn't exactly just make a clean break and be done with it. The process was heartwrenching, and I definitely made more enemies than friends, but eventually I found that, because I was finally following my passion, I was much happier in the end.

So basically, after all my meandering comments, what I want to say is: find your passion and run toward it. Find what makes you "come alive" and go do that. If you've heard of the artist Michelangelo -- no, not the Ninja Turtle, but that would be awesome, too -- then you might recognize this quote. Again I will leave you with a profound quote, this time from the aforementioned artist -- and again from Orientation.
"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."
So go ahead and pursue your dreams, follow your passions, and make a name for yourself. Not being overly corny, but that's what we were all meant to do, SO DO IT!

Until next time...
ET


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