Eun-Li Deem 5th hour
AP English 3 Jennings
September 17, 2013
The Cycle of Us
My life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t have a handsome Prince Charming knocking on my door, wiling to carry me away from my repeat life. Nor do I have paparazzi following me, studying my one track, one song routine. No, I don’t have any of these; I only possess my schedule. A schedule not set by me because honestly schedules turn us into repetitive robots who simply roll with punches and try to make it through another day. There is a clear set routine; but have we set the routine or does the routine have us set?
I catch a glimpse of it everywhere I go; the way people just go with the familiar motions of everyday life. My teachers have the same mug as yesterday filled to the brim with reheated coffee. Clothes of last week have been washed and are worn on the matching days of this week. I know exactly we will be taking the test for unit 5 even though we are now in unit 2. Everything has been neatly organized with no error. Error calls for a screw up with the cycle, and nobody can mess with the cycle.
To say that my cycle is planned would be the understatement of the year. There was nothing to plan; it was already carved into the stone of Eun-Li Deem’slife, and this is one stone that just won’t erode. My life is a record put on repeat. Where is my shuffle option? Why is everything so predictable and boring? I thought I was the DJ, able to the turn the tables whichever way I want to, but apparently not. I’m just here to wait on what life tells me to do.
Nothing gets any better once I hit the “real world”. Society has its rules etched out; the limitations we must abide by. “Get this job, make this amount, donate to charity, and you must get married by this age.” Why can’t it just leave me be? I won’t even find peace in the career I want. “Wake up at 6 a.m., be here by 8 a.m., do this until 5.” How ridiculously drab human existence truly is when you think of it on a wider spectrum.
Parents aren’t any help either, in fact they are the example we live by. We have been observing them since birth and nothing changes our whole lifetime. Of course there’s the aging of skin, gravity’s familiar pull, and rarely there is a situation of relocating. But besides the normal surprises of everyday life everything remains the same. If I were asked what my mom was doing at the exact moment I could provide an elaborate answer no matter what time of the day it was or the difference in our locations.
From 1 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. she is sleeping in her work clothes. At 2:45 p.m., when I arrive home, she is awake and ready to bombard me with the same questions about my day as yesterday, and receiving the same answers. Around 5:15 p.m. after an early dinner she takes a shower and into her required work dress. Then she is off by 6 p.m. until it’s quitting time and the cycle restarts. Nothing changes.
Everything has its place in life, regardless of how unsatisfactory it may be. The recurring events of my daily existence are all I will ever know and I can accept that. “You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself any direction you chose, You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” This quote from Dr. Suess speaks of everything I have, with the exception of the last line. I’m not the one who will decide where to go. There is an invisible anomaly doing that for me. My routine has been set for my life.
Routine: a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program. Life: A quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body or inanimate matter. Definition is what we go by and have been going by for many years. So why can’t we each define our lives ro fit our wants and needs. Then we would be living life, instead of life living us.