UW Off Campus

After all these years, all the places I've been and things I've done, I have to say that one of the most universally exciting is the area around a university, preferably a large one. Whether you're talking California, Florida, Washington or any other place I can think of, few feelings compare to the vibrancy, the unbridled hope, that comes with a university and its environs. I'm in a coffee shop just off the UW Seattle campus, and the sights, the sounds, really are not all that different from when I was a student at UC Davis. OK, sure, there are things like free Wi-Fi which didn't exist when I was in college, and about one-third of the customers have a laptop in front of them, but beyond that it would be hard to distinguish this from a coffee shop of 20 plus years ago. (Hot drip coffee in a beer pint glass is still a bit hard to drink, but it was done in my day.) I don't think the people who are here day in and day out realize what opportunities they have in front of them; I know I didn't at the time, and one of my biggest mistakes was to underestimate the possibilities for the future, to limit my expectations, my goals, and my dreams.

I guess part of the problem is that as people age, they (we) lose out on the idea of swinging for the fences. Today's OK, tomorrow will be more or less the same, no better, no worse, so accept the tedium. The sitcoms will be on tonight, the future is predictable save for the name that is attached to the winner of the next "American Idol." Passion and dreams for the future are left behind, and in fact ridiculed other than "planning for retirement," preferably starting at a young age. To be sure, there's nothing wrong with stability and security, but when life is so predictable that tomorrow will be a rerun of today, I have to wonder if we haven't lost sight of why we are here. We speak of "risk takers," but how many of us are willing to step beyond the known, the tired, the true.

Boredom is something I feel all too often. It's not, however, simply my life, but rather what we as an American society seem to accept, in fact what we seem to demand. Where's the growth and the stretch to reach a higher level, to do a little better tomorrow than today? Hint: It's not in that sitcom rerun.