A common refrain from high school students goes something like this: “Why do I need to know algebra?! I’ll never use this in real life.” I would guess that most (if not every) parent and teacher have fielded this question.
The answer, of course, is that school is not just about math… or science or English. It is about teaching us how to learn, how to solve problems, how to think.
We spend a lot of time waiting for big, romantic moments. We’re looking for lightning to strike. And we mope through our days in the meantime, thinking, if not saying, “what is the point of this?”
Everything in life matters. Everything. Whatever circumstance or setting we find ourselves in, it is an opportunity to choose. And the choices we make slowly mold our character.
Mundane life is not inherently mundane. We make the ordinary dull as a result of our perspective. We convince ourselves that because a thing has happened many times before, it is not exciting. Because we don’t fully understand, it is useless.
There is value in all we experience. All we see. All we do. The only thing that voids this meaning is our unwillingness to see, to search. What we choose, even in the moments when we cannot see the end fruit of our choices, helps shape the life we are living.
Ponder Today: Our decisions not only affect the circumstances around us, they develop and reinforce patterns for how we choose, how we think, and what we perceive.