Nobody has ever had to do anything.

There's a very distinct difference between coercion and consequences. I don't have to go to work. I don't have to go to school. I don't have to do anything but what I want, even if that's just eating Doritos, playing video games, and masturbating for a month straight. The problem is, I've seen the other side, I lived the other side for the majority of my life so far, and it ain't pretty.

So we set priorities. We come up with goals for ourselves. We do what we "have" to do in order to reach the point where we want to be. I will now substitute want for the "have" that is in quotes, since I've demonstrated that outside of brutal coercion, people tend to overly misuse necessity and imperative.

Now we're back to page one. I want to be in school. I want to be at my job. I've set these priorities for an abstract future that I don't know about what may happen? But why live for tomorrow? What about today? My question has already been answered. I do want to be in school. It's where I can be with like-minded people. It's where I can be constantly learning, and adapting my identity to the knowledge I osmose. I want to go to work every evening. It's where I'm useful, it's where I can challenge myself or sit on the sidelines. It's freedom.

My question that I've asked myself, and subsequently answered, is this: now that I know the hedonistic lifestyle isn't IT, and I work hard because I want to, is there any reason not to want and thus become the hardest working, the smartest, the most accomplished, the absolute best in the world?

Bill Gates didn't "have" to make Microsoft and become a billionaire. My parents didn't "have" to work hard, get married, and raise a family, and have jobs in the healthcare industry where they feel they can best help people. Humanity doesn't have to wake up every morning and slave away in their mundane routines in order to keep the world going round. They want to.

Why not work a little harder so the mundane, the work, the trial can be in the manner in which we want it to be. Learn Spanish. Wake up and run. Write. Start a band. And be the best person in the world. While these specifics might be my callings, you do what you want to do. When you realize that what you "have" to do can very well be transformed into what you want for yourself, the world seems far less cruel.