By now, it has become obviously clear that I have lost sight of what really matters in life and what is my purpose in it. This problem isn't really anything new, it's just your average case of "existential crisis" from a teen suffering it at an early age. Now, having an existential crisis at an early age is an extremely horrible thing to experience.
I don't know how mine usually started, but I know that it began when I slowly lost sight of the dream—the dream that I have of building a better and brighter tomorrow. It might sound silly to you, possibly because it's something that a 3rd grader would say ("I want to change the world when I grow up.") but it's actually a very strong vision to me. The vision of a more peaceful, a more prosperous, and a more hopeful future is the only large-scale dream I have (that and a few other unnecessary ones).
But honestly speaking, ever since I was little, I've always been fascinated with technology and the future. I fancied myself the idea of living in a modern a minimalist future filled with flying cars and a ubiquity of holograms, all with a shade of pure white and bright cyan. As I grew older, this vision of a better tomorrow manifested into a dream, which turned into an idea, which lead me to the pursuit of the same vision I had years ago. It's a far-flung dream from reality, but hey, you are free to chase down whatever dream you have in your short time on this earth—and I believe you should chase it, especially if it aims to help humanity as a whole.
However, no matter how hard I chase down my dream, at the end of the day I'm still human. I broke down in sadness, I was sometimes put my own lustful desires ahead of the dream I wanted to pursue, and, worst of all, I constantly experienced moments of pure laziness and a willing feeling of not just doing anything. Residing to laziness is something I often did, and, honestly speaking, it made me comfortably accept the idea that things will always turn out for the worst. So I resided myself to the idea of this horrible future and it's because that future doesn't expect anything of me today.
That is, of course, until opportunity knocked at my doorstep. Like a survivor trying to free himself from the rubble, hope—time and time again—has risen out of the darkness and made its way into my life. This time, it came in the form of a website, Microsoft DreamSpark.
It was an average Monday night for me, one filled with wallowing over a failed quiz in calculus, in which I got one of the lost grades in the entire block. Distraught, I immediately tried to find my forte, as I thought that there must be something I excelled at. I looked at my course and, without hesitating, I turned to programming. Although programming isn't something I'm inherently good at, I'm sure that I can learn it and, if I put my mind and will to it, I know that I'm going to excel on it someday.
I immediately searched for programming tools that are free of cost for students and, lo and behold, Microsoft DreamSpark was one of the top search results. Although my college doesn't really support the program itself, I still thought that I could still apply to it. After all, it did say that it was open to all students willing to get a head start in programming. I took out my Lumia, took a photo of my registration form along with my details, and sent it on its way.
In less than 24 hours, I got this email:
I was ecstatic when I got that email. I felt like things were going to finally start out well for me and I'm now finally able to get myself out of this rut in my life. I got the tools, and now I need to learn how to dig myself out of this.
As you can see, that email was sent more than 2 weeks ago, and my progress in programming has since dwindled as the usual disappointment from calculus piled up, not to mention that I have 6 days of classes every week, and I only had access to programming tools at home. My laptop is broken beyond repair (although it's still useful but suffers from slowdowns every now and then) so I can't really test out the skills I've learned while I'm at APC (Asia Pacific College).
One reason of this is because I don't have any access to any computers during my free time. As much as I would love to, I don't really have proper access to any programming tools in APC aside from using them in my designated subjects—which is just a small 8 hours compared to the average of 44 hours I spend a week in APC, not to mention the additional 2 and a half hours I spend every single day getting to and from my college, which totals to about 15 hours per week. If only I was able to allocate, at the very least, an additional 4 or 6 hours a week at APC learning how to code, I would've already known the fundamentals of the Java and C# programming languages.
Nevertheless, I still had around 109 hours left at home. So, at the end of the day, it's all my fault if I don't learn programming. At this point, I'm really considering taking time management skills or I should find meaning and purpose in the things I do and the things I want to do.
Regaining sight of the dream I want to pursue is not easy, nor is being able to implement it. But still, I'm always thinking of that famous movie quote that went, "Most dreams don't come true on their own, you have to make them true. Takes a lot of work, not easy, but not impossible either."