(SitNews) Klawock, Alaska -A former student of mine emailed me asking for help writing his last high school column for his journalism portfolio. It was about a list of things he wanted to do before he was 30. He didn’t know how to start it, or what places and things to list because as we had discussed, noun lists change.

I gave him some advice on crafting something honest and meaningful then thought about a promise I made to a girl when I was roughly his age.

I wasn’t sure how, because when you’re sitting on the roof talking on the phone with a girl on another island, trying to locate the same constellations like corny teenage romantics do, you don’t think about logistics. But we casually, maybe seriously, agreed that when I turned 28, if we were still single, we’d find each other and get married. That night we decided to be each other’s insurance policies in case the exciting lives we would undoubtedly live still had us unwed by that age.

It’s painful to write, not because it didn’t happen, or because I lost touch with her, but because I thought she was my it, my her, my pronoun. My life plan included her.

Oh, what I thought I knew when I was 16.

What I discovered in the years since is that life is about verbs creating nouns, because things aren’t possible without action and most times action takes you to exciting new nouns and pronouns you didn’t previously consider.

About this time of year we tell the graduating seniors that if you want something bad enough, you can go get it. Action. What we mean is if you want something bad enough, work really hard so when that doesn’t work out as you plan, something else will and you can be happy.

In books and movies dynamic characters change, evolve and grow. Static characters stay the same. Nouns change in fulfilling ways for dynamic people thanks to their action - studying, trying, working, fighting - so when the plan fails, it’s not the end.

We implore graduates to be dynamic like the protagonists they followed in the books they chose to read. The thing about being a protagonist in a good, real-life story is that you don’t know exactly where you’re going and what you will encounter on your way.

After losing on a last second shot in the regional championship game his senior year, my brother Mark vowed to play basketball in college. He didn’t plan to be a practice player for the women’s team or to be handing water to the men’s team as a freshman. Taking a charge from a 7-foot Russian the next year and having his mouth sewn back together was on no high school list of his, but it happened. He made the team and ended the season with a loss to Indiana in the NCAA tournament.

To pay for medical school he joined the military which took him to Iraq twice, Guam and North Carolina where he and his family now live. Not even my super-determined, analytical brother could have mapped out all those pre-30 nouns.

My cheesy teenage pipe dreams, lists and ideas were replaced with realistic aspirations of an adult. The same thing will happen for Eric. Graduation is an important and imminent noun for him, but it is impossible to predict or understand the depth of experience - the people, places, things and ideas - he will encounter in the 12 years before he turns 30.

That’s exciting, and I hope Eric wrote his column with that in mind. I hope he is more overwhelmed by opportunity in the blanks he can’t fill, than in the desire to be right.

Jeff Lund ©2014

Jeff Lund is a Teacher, Freelance Writer, & River fishing guide (Tranquil Charters) living in Klawock, Alaska
Contact Jeff at Email – aklund21@gmail.com

http://www.jlundoutdoors.com

SitNews ©2014
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