Hello

It is me speaking to you, Antonio. It is your inner consciousness, your real self. What are you doing with your life, Antonio? Are you happy? Are you living your life the way you want it to be lived? Is this your ideal life, Antonio?

I ask you, because you are the only one who knows what your ideal life is. What is it? Do you enjoy following the norms of society as you have until now? Two full years, and counting, have you spent tied to societal norms, following reasonable rules, remaining within the respectable limits... no longer exploring, pushing, breaking the limits, living to your full potential. You are living according to the potential of the program you subscribe to, Antonio. Are you happy with this? Is this what you want? I ask you... tell me. What do you truly want from Life, Antonio? Do you want a respectable, educated, proper life? What do you expect to do during the next few years? Are you here to learn? To collaborate onto producing cutting-edge Science, Technology - to develop methods and algorithms that will probably be published into papers very few people will even know exist? Or to develop one so innovative, so useful, so grand, yet so simple, that it will shake, or even shatter, the very foundations upon which our current scientific viewpoint relies? Do you expect to leave your mark in the world, with an idea that would bear your name until long after civilization falls into chaos again? Would you be happy knowing that, for example, you discovered a most accurate algorithm that determines the thoughts that a person is thinking, or that you characterized the behavior of huge networks of any kind connected in any manners, or modeled knowledge itself even, making everyone else adopt your new model because of its inherent superiority? Is that what you want, Antonio? Academic success? Haven't you already achieved that? You have proven yourself to have an understanding mind, an agile one when it comes to it. But you also have an intermittent passion for Science and Technology... is that what drives you? Is that what brought you here?

Are you here because Carnegie Mellon University, the top-ranked institution in Computer Science programs in the United States, having given you the honor of accepting you into their prestigious program, is an opportunity that would be foolish to throw away? When I heard the news that I had been accepted into the program, my entire being raced and flooded with joy, excitement, accomplishment... euphoria. And I ask you... do you feel that now? Do you smile with excitement during your classes, do you shine with joy with the prospect of each new due project or new topic you see in class? I sense that you do not do so, except slightly, these days. New concepts are interesting, but the strong motivation that you had before seems distant, faded, a little disillusioned. What did you expect from your Ph.D. program, Antonio? Constant excitement? A never-ending streaming flow of ideas, coming from some of the recognizedly most knowledgeable people in the Computer Science community, which would raise your understanding to new orders of intelligence?

Every pants wears out with time, every pretty girl, every man. Even sex, Eurotrip, and Carnegie Mellon, if inner motivation does not keep the wheels of wonder and excitement turning. Inertia is bound to stop even the fastest and strongest momentum, if it is not driven by a force thus. Every one. Every single one. My sky illusions of bliss when I achieve my goals of going to the UltraMusic Festival, Burning Man, or walking from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego - they will all fade away with time, after achieving satisfaction through them. Then it is not a question of what do you feel most like doing at any particular point in time, but rather through which path will you be happy, thrilled, constantly amazed, as you walk on and find the obstacles along that path. Whether they are obstacles or challenges, it depends only on how you see it - how you feel about what you are doing.

So... which path through Life shall be yours, Antonio? Are you happy with your Life, inside the margins of expectancy? Treading a wide, well-known road, following the masses, happy to be normal? Is that what you are?

Think about it. Decide upon your Life. It is well-worth it.