I was asked by a former professor of mine to write a five minute stream-of-consciousness email about myself so that he’d have something fresh in his mind when he wrote me a letter of recommendation. After hitting send I went back and looked at what I wrote; I thought it was interesting enough that it was worth posting here.

I like to think that I’m someone who balances his interest in both the journey and the destination. Being at either extreme means missing out on a sizable part of life, in my opinion. If I generalize it a bit: To be focused on the journey means to live life in the present, while focusing on the destination means the predefined goals are most important. To me, these two things are complimentary. The journey is of little consequence if you don’t know where you’re going, and arriving somewhere is considerably more enjoyable if the path taken was itself enjoyable. So, I try to be aware not only of where I’m (hopefully) going but also where I’ve been, where I’m at and all the in-betweens.

The questions that interest me most are the “big ones”; you know, “What does everything mean?” and the like. I don’t suspect I’ll find any answers to these questions. Rather, I like to think that my awareness of them helps guide me in setting of goals and paths toward those goals. In that regard, success is determined somewhat by how well I know myself, so I try to be quite introspective and more importantly honest with myself. I regularly will “check myself” to see how I’m doing when it comes to my goals and if the path is making me happy. I also accept that change is only as scary or exciting as I want it to be and so I try not to prevent myself from making big changes in my life if I feel it is in my best interest to do so.