“Let go of your pens, congratulations class, your final exams are now over.” said Ms. Smith

It was the last exam of your highschool career. It was the final hurdle of what seemed like an endless and strenuous Olympic race of wits and diligence. Your back rested, your hands dropped and a surge of satisfaction and relief rushed through your body, sending staccatos of joy tingling through your spine. However, your excitement did not last long enough, you began to worry once again.

The stressful faces of students all around reminded you of distorted paintings. Confused between relief and stress for the result, the room radiated feelings of fret. You immediately feel this somewhere deep in your stomach. It was as if a raven picked at your gut, or a fire burned from deep within, roasting its way up.

How Did I do? What if I didn’t get a 95 in English? Nor a 100 in university level chemistry?
I would never be able to come an astronuclear biomechanical physicist!

These thoughts freefall through your head like lava erupting from a volcano. Your muscles twitch, panic began to cloud your senses.

“Justin? Are you alright? Feeling okay there?”

“Yeah, of course, Ms. Smith, I’m fine, just a little…excited.”

“Come here Justin, right next to me.”

Your teacher had a smile of her face as she motioned you towards the front of the class. You stood up, lifting what feels like tons of iron straining ever inch in your body. You slowly made your way towards her desk. A bead of your steaming sweat slams to the floor. You feel every pair of eyes watching you. It was as if you were a thief in the midst of justice, or the light at the end of a tunnel.

“Justin, I want you to take a deep breath, and close your eyes. Count to ten for me… And when you’re fully relaxed, open them again.”

What a joke! I’ve done therapy merely four weeks ago when my pet hamster died. What kind of regenerative technique is this witch going to do to me?
Nevertheless, you followed her commands and slowly closed your eyes. You felt your own pulsing heartbeat deep in your core. It was as if every beat said, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop…

When you finally open your eyes to the tranquil classroom, Ms. Smith was no longer around. Your previous classroom has vanished. Every single student is gone, all the words on the wall, and all the stacks of exams, disappeared.

  Where am I?

When your vision finally cleared and your mind finally settled, you begin to observe. You grasp the leather edges of your seat and placed your hands on your Apple Macbook. You bit down on the pen balancing between your teeth and saw where you really were. You watched as hundreds of student assembled in a room that reminded you of a coliseum. Way below, stood a professor above what seemed like a sanctum of knowledge. He talked with charisma, with enough enthusiasm and passion near the edge of fury. You looked down at yourself. It was almost as if without control, your fingers flew at the speed of sound, trying to capture the professor’s every word. You peeked into your backpack and found a textbook the size of Texas, with the price tag enough buy a diamond. Inside the front flap, it said
University of Harvard, Faculty of Science

Then something magical happened. The professor stopped talking. The shuffling of papers and the myriad of key boarding slamming and frustrated sighs all stopped. You looked to your left and right, everything was frozen in motion. The half-eaten sandwich of the girl sitting beside you dripped ketchup onto her white skirt. It was as if space and time came to a halt. You pondered in excitement and glory.

This can’t be real, this is the education I’ve waited for all my life.

You began to see yourself in a whole new light. Working hard was no problem as long as class remained interesting. And it always did. Nothing stopped you in your track and you worked day and night. Whether it was beside the light or into the night or beside two guys in the midst of a fight. After so many years, you wore your graduation hat and stood amongst hundreds of graduating students.

    Yeah, that’s the life I’d like to live. It’s just perfect for me.

Just when you began to picture your perfect self, pursuing your true passion, you saw something else. You saw the endless nights of studying. The times of ignorance to your friends and having to turn down your mom’s Skype calls. You saw yourself having to eat cup Ramen and dollar hot dogs to save money and because it cooked fast and filled you fast. You saw yourself grow a beard, but never having the time to trim it. Or always left the dishes to your roommate to wash. You saw how ever week, you had to pay your rent and if it wasn’t costly enough, your tuition and textbooks could fund half of the world’s poverty program. You slowly saw the white hairs just peek from your forehead and the wrinkles begin to mark your once radiant skin.

And before you had the time to think about whether university was the right decision for you, you entered the job force. You struggled for years before finding a job at a doctor’s office as an assistant. And it wasn’t for four more years before you opened your own clinic. By that time, you were thirty three. Too young to be single, too old to be hold hands with the teenage love of your life.

Where has the time gone? Is this really my life?

And then, the fantasy stops. A blast of deafening sirens ripped through the air. It sounded like a machine screeching in pain. The noise sends your body into relapse, your hands over your ears, and your head between your knees. Your body shakes and turns, as if tumbling in space to a new galaxy.

When it all stops, you are in another classroom. This time, it was small, comfortable, and almost felt like home. You looked around and realized you stood in a workshop. The Honda Civic harnessed in the air was under the control of your teacher. From what you saw, he was a God of tools. Twisting and turning, it was like every ounce of machinery was a part of his flesh and blood. Your fascination peaks, and before you know it, you begin to find your own design. Your teacher stopped his work, and waked towards you with rolled scrolls of blueprints. These prints were outlines of every single machine that roamed the earth. From the miracle of automobiles to the phenomenon of air travel, it was all there. Your engineering career truly began, and your teacher was there to guide you every step of the way.

Within years, you worked with precision and accuracy. You ran an auto repair shop with plenty of business. You learned skills repair and motion design with your hands and your mind. With the skills you gained throughout college, you used them for a lifetime.

Hey, why didn’t I think about going to college anytime sooner? Why did I ignore such an eye-opening place for me?

In the happiness of your new dream, you once again slipped out. Falling through a void of darkness, it was as if the world played you like a puppet. Pulling every string, controlling every inch of your body and making you hold your breath for what seemed like an eternity.

Deep breathes, deep breathes, you thought to yourself. In this life of work, one slip, you may just loose a finger. You open your eyes to fire. You blink and look again, there it is again, fire. It burned the iron with fury and intensity. It was nowhere near the energy in your fast-moving wok and quick-turning spatula. Within minutes, food is prepared, cooked, served, and enjoyed. It was all a part of a challenge. Your final assessment in the fourteen week apprenticeship in the restaurants of Shangri-La Hotel at the heart of Toronto. You learned every inch of your knife and every grain of the meat. You felt the burn of the fire and the excitement of your workplace. As fire is the fuel of cooking, the robust flavours of your dishes and environment of your workplace kept you on your toes. This was the end of your exhilarating course, outside of any ordinary classroom. Perhaps, the best classrooms were ones without tables.

As you served your last dish of filet mignon, you turned around to a pool of oil splashed on the floor. You took a step, and you realized your mistake. Your legs slipped out from under you and you await for impact.

But, impact never came. You kept your eyes closed. Time continued to pass as the wind blew against your back and brushed your hair. You felt the air grow stronger, almost pushing you upward, turning you around.

Suddenly, you were no longer in a kitchen. You were thirty thousand feet in the air. You had just jumped off from a Cargo jet. This time, after leaving highschool, you never pursued anything but what your heart demanded. You would never forget the time when you enlisted for the Canadian Special Forces. Nor the time you were deployed to India and felt the warmth and tasted the spices. Perhaps it was the time where you travelled to Egypt for a safekeeping mission beneath the Great Pyramids. And now, your adventures have lead you to new heights. You once thought the human body could not stand altitudes of a Boeing 747. But Everest proved that wrong. And now once again, you dived headfirst into the ground with only a backpack and a heart full of courage.  The chill of the air cleared your mind and cleansed your thoughts. You watched as the clouds move with mountains and danced harmoniously with the sky. No matter where you would eventually land, there would be a path waiting for you.

“Justin, Justin, are you alright? Are you asleep?” said Ms. Smith

Your teacher’s voice jolts you back into reality. It hits you like a bitter frost in the midst of autumn or a wave on an ocean shore. You open your eyes only to close them once again.

“Justin, what are you doing now? Open your eyes.”

You take a deep breath, thinking about what you just saw.

“I’d rather keep them closed, I wish you could see what I am seeing right now. It’s an endless world out there, and I feel limitless. I feel beyond boundaries. And most of all…”
“I feel infinite.”
                        

“Life is not measured by the number of breathes you take. But by the moments that take your breathes away.”