SamWatson.us
While we were still on the island of Kaua’i, right after I had renewed my Scuba license, I knew I wanted to have adventures on the other Hawaiian islands. Doing a google search on what to do on the Big Island, I found out you could do a night dive with Manta Rays and immediately booked a ticket.
Early in the morning, I woke up in Iceland, and a few hours later, I landed in Dublin, Ireland. I lugged my two backpacks through the airport and onto a downtown bus. I had booked my stay at a hostel the day before, but check-in wasn’t available since I had arrived so early.
Living in Hawai’i was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I think not working was a part of it, but Kaua’i is also spectacular. The island is a little plop on the ocean, 25 miles long by 33 miles wide. It’s known as the “garden isle” for being the greenest in the chain.
Today at lunch, my coworker Matthew mentioned our mutual coworker Robyn. He thought it was funny to overhear Robyn calling her husband in the middle of the day. According to Matthew, there would be a scattered conversation, an “I love you,” and a goodbye.
Cato learned to eat a poor man’s rations and went barefoot in the heat or rain. Seneca celebrated the beginning of the year by taking icy cold plunges in the roman aqueduct. Marcus Aurelius would remind himself that the people he meets today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.
The other day at the park, my son Dash started playing tag with some kids. My son is super fast and very hard to catch, and he earns his name. To top that off, there is a play area with slides and ladders where he will camp out, making it impossible to tag him.
My favorite holidays are April Fool’s Day and New Year’s Day. It takes intelligence to be humorous or devise a well-thought-out prank, but it takes grit to improve yourself by setting New Year’s Resolutions. And who doesn’t have something about themselves they would like to improve on? If you aren’t growing, you are dying.
After graduating from primary and moving on to college, one learns all types of new things and is confronted with situations beyond what they have experienced before. One class drove this lesson home for me more than any other. Life Drawing.
When Roman generals would return home from a successful campaign, they would arrive with the thunderous applause of citizens cheering their victories. Can you imagine the feeling of all the fanfare? Being the center of attention for your heroic exploits? It would be pretty easy to let it all go to your head.
Do people become more or less open-minded as they grow up? I would say, for the most part, the people I have observed seem to have been malleable in their youth. But, like clay pots drying in the sun, would harden their opinions as time went on.