One day at the firing range ...

I woke up at six on that Saturday morning and met Joey, Justin, Bailey and the others out at the garage to head out on our trip. We shoveled ourselves into cars and half slept on the way as we stared at the rain drops beading across the car windows. After an hour and a half we had arrived and we stretched and yawned as we got out of the cars. At the shotgun range we met our two instructors, one small, one large. We then walked over to the range, and began the arduous task of carrying all the shells and clays up the muddy hill to the shooting platform. We were given a brief safety lecture, during which I mostly swatting flies, which apparently weren't bothered by the rather dank weather.

We walked over to the shooting platform to get ready to shoot. The instructor asked which of us wanted to go first, and oddly none of us volunteered. We had been looking forward to this trip for weeks, but now that the time had come all of us were a bit trigger shy. We had all fired guns before, but this time it was different. Being either stoic or stupid, I stepped forward, I picked up the gun, and I rose it up. I held the muzzle up there for a couple of seconds waiting to be comfortable, but that moment never came. Finally, I shouted pull, since my arm was getting tired and sort of wanted it to be over. The clay floated across the tree line as I pulled the trigger and heard the thunderous boom. My shoulder whipped back as if I had be struck by Mjöllnir itself, soon my whole body was knocked back as my feet slide backwards on the wet boards. When I fell upon the rear railing, my ears were shot, but I was able to make out the mutterings of the instructor "keep the stock of the gun against your shoulder".

The next time I was up to shoot, you could be certain I kept that stock glued to my shoulder. I said pull, took the shot, and dusted the clay. That day, I went on to becoming half decent at shotgun shooting and enjoyed the rest of the day as the flies went away and my accuracy improved.

The thing I was able to take away from that day wasn't just a really sore shoulder, but the confidence to face problems head on. I learned not avoid them, because if I just backed off an iota they would only kick back at me harder.

How do we figure out whether or not a life has value? When do we make this decision? What is the meaning and purpose of life? Consider the things th

When I first read this question I was completely stumped over what I believed the meaning and purpose of life was. For inspiration I went to see what history's great thinkers thought of life (why reinvent the wheel). Many of them (at least Darwin, Epicurus, Euripides, Socrates, Thoreau, & William Wallace) came to the same conclusion: life is short and we should make the most of it. Life's value is that we never know how much we have left, and are driven to make the best of it. But how do we make the best of it? Many historical figures such as those aforesaid mentioned advocated a life of action. The only problem taking action is that you could be taking the wrong action, after all there is no absolute answer to what you should do with your life. In the book Why Most Things Fail, by Paul Ormerod, the central message to this book was that nine times out of ten things won't work out whether they be evolution or economics. Consequently, whenever you do something, the odds are stacked against your success. But how are we supposed to openly do something when we know failure is imminent?

As I researched what influential people in history thought of the meaning of life, I came across a thought experiment proposed by Professor Daniel Robinson of Oxford University. He proposed that your brain would be put in a vat and it would be stimulated to have dreams so that your life would be played out as you wished. You would "have it your way", but instead of a whopper it be your perfect life. I began to think about what things I would want in my perfect life. The first thing I thought of was money, it may seemed shallow, but in our world money offers both a safety net and trampoline for life. After that, I thought companionship would be nice, going along the same idea that it is always better to watch a movie with someone else. Finally, to rap it all together, I only wanted to have good memories. After all, memories are our most cherished possession and if possible they should be as good as possible.

However, the problem though which I came across when creating my perfect life is that I made for myself achievements, without actions. An achievement is really just icing without the cake. After going through Professor Robinson's experiment I finally realized what those historical figures were talking about. It doesn't matter so much as what you do, so long as you are spending the unknown amount of time you do have on earth. Now most of the time your efforts may not pay off, but when they do you should all the happier that things finally worked. In the end, life is the can be boiled down to the one in ten occurrence of things working out and you achieving what you really wanted, and the journey along the way.