The summer disappears so fast. Classes start again tomorrow. It’s interesting to note that I’ll only undergo this shift from summer to school once more in my life. Sometimes the days just seem to blend together. A chaotic blur of life. Then one day something dawns on you and you wonder how you could be day dreaming your way through life. Somehow you’ve managed to miss the point. It’s the story of my life. But there’s no use kicking myself now. So it’s time to return to school. Back to thinking, back to questioning, back to a challenge. It’s a wonder that we back away from these things come summer. Maybe it’s just from overload. At least I hope that’s the case. I’d hate for the rest of my life to be a permanent summer of backing down from engaging thought. There’s something gratifying about using the intelligence God had given us.

When things get back to normal, it’ll be okay. Back where things are comfortable and familiar, back in a place you can call home.

I hate to be the one to brake it to you, but you can’t go back. You can’t ever go back. Things can’t go back to normal. What you call comfortable, familiar, and at home is all in the past. It’s all behind you, and it will never be the same again. We live in the present, not the past, and the present is always changing, never familiar, constantly full of surprises.

It’s true that we can’t go back to the way things used to be, but we can make them better than they used to be. Why relish in past joys that have been gone so long, when new joys await around the next bend? You can find the familiar and the comfortable here and now in the present, if only you’d look. You have to seek it, but it is there. And the moment you realize it’s familiar and comfortable, it’s gone, and it’s in the past, it’s a golden memory, and now you’re experiencing something new.

The group of friends I used to hang out with in high school is anything but the same group now. Some have gone, some have changed, others have come into the group. If I cling to the old memories of that gang of friends, I’ll never be happy in the present. But if I embrace the change and stop waiting for things to get back to normal, then I’ll find new and greater memories unfolding before me.

Life is constantly changing. So hang on.

Every day is a new day. Open doors of possibility and potential. Opportunity for surprise, for joy, for sorrow.

Today is a new day. A new chapter. A new beginning. Sometimes all you can do is hold on tight and grit your teeth until this wild ride quits tossing you around. But maybe when it stops tossing you around is when things get comfortable, and who wants to be comfortable?

Sometimes life gets twisted on you and you don’t know which way is up. You don’t know which way to turn. You don’t know where to call home. But at least my feet are on the rock.

Where have you gone today? Out to play, again? Why are you so wrapped up in your own little world? Every time I turn around that’s where you are. I thought you had better things to do. I thought you wanted to do something, be somebody. I thought you dreamed of changing the world. But look what you’ve become. True, you’re not there yet, but you’re on the road that leads to destruction. You’re turning in to what you hate. You try so hard to erase the hypocritical lies that plague society like poisoned pixie dust–and there you go, falling for the same trap. You judge and sentence them with one quick glance, convicting all with your mighty gaze. Just when will you look in the mirror? Lost in your days of pleasure, just not too sure of what’s going on. You can’t fix anything until it’s too late, so don’t start just yet. I have no qualms with what you’re doing, it’s what you’re not doing that bothers me so. Read a chapter from your own book–or make it simple and read one from mine. Perhaps you shouldn’t be reserving your harsh words and harsh thoughts everyone else. You say you want to change the world, well you better start with yourself.