The Best Years of My Life

My college years were pretty stressful. As a double-major in chemistry and mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, my courses were not trivial and I spent a lot of time studying. While I did have fun (from time to time), my justification for the brutal lifestyle which I upheld was that when I finished college, life would be better. Easier. Less stressful. More important, the premise was that because of the hard work I put in during those undergraduate years, the years that followed would be better as a result. A more interesting, better-paying job would be available, maybe.

I used to joke around a lot when people would say "these are the best years of your life." I'd usually have some sarcastic comment prepared for such an event, and always think that maybe if I lived the more stereotypical college life that might be true, but since I was an academic I was making an investment with my life. The years to follow were sure to be better.

I moved to North Carolina following completion of my degrees and began graduate study in chemistry, pursuing my Ph D. The brutal hours of study, the difficulty of the coursework, the high expectations on my own performance all returned with a vengeance. Again I returned to the mindset that I was investing in my life. These few years are unpleasant so that the rest of them will be better.

I think its a lie.

What will I do after I get my Ph D? I'll go get a post-doctoral fellowship at another university. I'll work just as hard for another 2 years, hating life, but promising myself that the years that follow will be better. After I finish the post-doc, I'll probably get a job as a professor, where I'll put in just as many (maybe even more) hours to "establish myself in the academic community" and receive tenure, so I don't have to stress about getting fired. After I receive tenure, somewhere around the time I turn 40-ish, will I finally relax enough to start living the way I should have been living all along?

One of the wisest things my sister has ever said is, "The best years of your life should be your entire life. Don't look to the future and say, 'My 20's were the best years,' or 'When I graduate things will be better.' You need to live your entire life saying 'These are the best years of my life.'" I feel Jesus is trying to say the same things in Luke 12:22 - 28

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious and trobuled about your life, as to what you will have to eat; or about your body, as to what you will wear.

For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.

Observe and consider the ravens; for they neither so nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn; and yet God feeds them. Of how much more worth are you than the birds!

...Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither wearily toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his splendor and magnificence was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today, and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you?"

What occurs to me in the verses above is that the ravens and the grass are neither wasting their life now for a better future, nor living at their futures expense. They are neither working excessively hard now in order to relax later, nor slacking off at the present to the detriment of later days. They are content in the labors they are currently doing and they are simply living.

The best years of their life are these years.