Looking Back and Forward

Despite what some might say and perhaps my appearance, I am an old university student who is still looking for my first degree, ever. When I had left the Army in July 2012, I knew what I wanted to study in school for my Bachelor's degree: philosophy. It might require another post to explain why I decided to major in that so I will defer that topic to another time. For the longest time, I have had two passions in the back of my mind that sometimes battled for my allegiance: wanting to have a family and pursuing a PhD.

Even though there were times of bitterness and cynicism towards women in general, I generally always wanted to be married and have a family because I love the idea of taking care of a woman and having children of my own. I'm generally a very caring, compassionate person. There have been times when it did not come easy for me to exercise compassion for someone else, but for the most part it does come naturally to me. I love and have loved the idea of taking care of someone, making them feel loved and adored in addition to having children of my own to take care of and invest in for some time. That has got to be the most serious responsibility for humanity apart from God.

I also have generally desired to pursue a PhD in philosophy until recently. It has recently dawned on me that I am not getting any younger and that time is ticking. But for some time I did want to pursue a PhD in philosophy for a variety of reasons that I realized were ultimately not very well grounded. For the record, I do not require or demand that you agree with everything that I say because I could be wrong even though I am pretty confident that I am not about at least some of these things that I will say later. It eventually came down to one factor: recognition and being taken seriously. If I could have a PhD then I would have some ounce of academic authority when making certain claims. I wanted to be like William Lane Craig, Robert P. George, and others. But of course I eventually realized that it does not always matter what your title is per se but the _substance_ of what you have to say. How well supported and argued are your points? Someone could be a very highly educated layman without a formal degree and do just fine.

So where am I going with this, you're probably asking. Because of how old I am - I am 31 years old going on 32 - and given the amount of time it takes to complete a PhD (at least 5 years), I most likely would be well close to forty years old before finally settling down and getting married. That's much too late for wanting to have children because women have lesser time on their "biological clocks" to become pregnant than men do, I'm inclined to believe. So eventually I had to make a choice. I decided that I am not going to pursue a PhD in philosophy but will rather pursue just a Master's tentatively, because it requires less time.

At the end of the day, when it is all said and done, I do not want to look back on my life and say that I was able to have amazing academic accomplishments but I did not settle down with someone and build a family, if I had to choose between them. Sometimes God may take us back through time and cause us to reflect on what we wanted to do then and compare it to what we might be meant to do now and in the future. Sometimes they are the same and different. So in the end, I decided to just stick with going with a Master's because it's the wiser choice and more realistic.

However, sometimes it is good to consider what other people - that I consider to be wise and who have my best interests in mind - say and maybe take a step back and reevaluate where I am headed. Even though I am not opposed to go for a PhD, I am inclined to think that going for an MA is a win-win situation. Primarily because if I realize that I do not want to pursue a PhD after an MA because I have had enough schooling, I may not have lost out on anything wonderful. Similarly, pursuing an MA only requires 2 years, which is not very long, but a PhD requires *at least* 5 years. On a further note, I realize that it is not necessarily a bad thing to get married while pursuing either degree and that I should not worry about missing out on an opportunity that I would have had otherwise if I did not pursue a degree.

God is much bigger than my fears. A wise person recently said to not abandon the God-given aspirations that I have and that a wife and family will be wonderful bonuses to a life that God has called me to pursue. It will not be as if my life is incomplete and suddenly becomes complete when a wife enters the picture. God has called me to pursue what He has placed in my heart to be worked out and cultivated so that I will be satisfied in Him and be able to enjoy other joyous benefits that complement my life while not *defining* my life.

In going forward, I have a lot of questions and uncertainties. I will apply to graduate school and an institute in Philadelphia that has a leadership program designed to help people - like myself - figure out their vocational callings based on their gifts, passions and aspirations. But there is no guarantee that I will be accepted anywhere. I am at the mercy of the circumstances and God's providential hand of guidance and wisdom to help me move forward. But I do know that the Lord is always present with me and that He always is willing my good for every situation so that I can honor Him, glorify Him, emanate His nature and flourish the way He designed me to function.