a fear of mine..

With the Christmas season upon us, and me being at such a distance from my family and many of friends, my mind has been wandering about the idea of time. Time spent in Korea, time spent in school, work time and play time, the present time and lifetime.
So this brings us to the title "a fear of mine.." Ever since my first year of University I've grown to love learning, and thanks to the influence of the community in little St. Stephen, and a few influential and inspiring friends, I have come to see the beauty in so many different things. I think a fault of mine has never been unwillingness to try, but rather the opposite: the willingness to try everything. Starting many things wouldn't be a bad thing, if only they could conceivably be completed. My sights however have been set upon so many different things that it might be impossible to complete them all (to "complete" meaning, to be satisfied enough to move on from that subject). I took a Spanish course in my first year at SSU. I took a German course in my last year. I wanted to/want to learn French again to help me remember what I had lost in the years of not studying it. I am now teaching myself Korean, and am being sidetracked because of the "coolness" of learning Japanese and Chinese. The problem is, that I have a hard time saying to myself "no, it can't be done". So I undertake many things, which lead me to more amazing things that I want to learn and do. This all leads me to one end; being only a little aware in a variety of different subjects.
I have never had "one" passion, or dream, but I've had many. But those many only seldom reach 'near completion'. The question I guess I'm really asking - what leads to a fulfilling life? Aristotle said;

Now the peculiar excellence of man is his power of thought; it is by this faculty that he surpasses and rules other forms of life; and as the growth of this faculty has given him supremacy, so, we may presume, its development will give him a fulfillment and happiness.

So knowledge gives us happiness? does it? What brings us that fulfillment? No Impact Man thinks that if we want fulfillment, if we want to be loved,

what we we need is living rooms full of people instead of closets full of stuff. We need community. Isn't that an important point? We could be happy without the stuff and without wrecking the planet. We just need to hang out more.

I think he's right about less consumeristic practices and more wholesome family time practices, but what about living life. The movie "The Pursuit of Happiness" taught us that we will never reach that final goal, but we'll always be in pursuit of it. So then the question is... How do we pursue?