As I sit across the dining table from my father, I can't help but reposition my eyes elsewhere from his gaze. Why you ask? Because I know within those eyes lay the feelings of hope. Hopes for not himself but for me and my future, my life, my happiness.. Previously we got into a discussion about the future and what it holds for me. Such as SATs, ACTs, college, and the final topper: career path. Coming from a more educational focused family, my life has always revolved around preparing for this year, that moment, and that future. With strict parents as mine my life basically was paved out from day one. As if they could manipulate my dreams and happiness to match their own. Don't mistake me, I love my parents dearly but moments like this I can't help but doubt myself. I doubt because I know deep within me that these dreams will never be fulfilled, no matter how many birthday candles are blown out, or stars wished upon, or eyelashes blown away.

Proud. The one word we all wish to give our loved one a sense of. We all wish to make our family, friends, and relatives happy whether it's by pleasing them or pleasing ourselves. But looking from a different perceptive how in the long run will this affect us? Will it make us happy for a day to day life, regretful that we didn't go with our true desires, or curious as to what would have happened if a different course was driven. Take a moment and step out of your safety zone, the box that surrounds you with security, inhibitors to all the possibilities, and your backbone, the very structure that provides you with stability, a sense of control and omniscience.

Taking my own advice, I continue to ponder today, what is life really about? Is it to ace that one tough biology test, is it to score that yearned for 2100 on our SAT, or is it to create a family so the next generation can question the same things...

Yesterday I had a very intense conversation with a dear friend of mine. She talked about how her high school is going to play out, how she has to start saving for that bittersweet college, and how she's going to be moving on and preparing for the "real world". And in that moment it hit me, stronger than the hurricane that attacked Kansas in The Wizard of Oz.. We are ALL going to grow up and eventually move on. Everyone, and the thing is I'm not sure whether or not I'm ready myself. Sure I surround myself with the perspective of time with the oh-so-famous phrases "oh there's plenty of time" or "we still have a couple of years ahead of us," but the end results are always the same. Not enough time. Never will there be enough time to figure all this out, never will there be enough time to make the right decisions, and never will there be enough time to put something off for a another moment. As one may say in Spanish "más tarde."

Time, it's a funny concept. It correlates to everything yet to nothing simultaneously. Months ago I had crossed path with an article that discussed what time truly was. Paraphrasing, it basically stated that time is a figment of our imagination; it's not real because man cannot physically measure it. So why do humans fear time? The answer is quite simple actually: We had created the very fear we wish would disappear. Age, Success, Death are all strung along on a fine line with the never ending fishing line of time.

Therefore, no matter how many cliché saying I read none of them will help overcome that dreaded click of the clock. Click, click, click..