“Beneath our feet lies an infinity of paths…Each time we find our mountain we choose what kind of traveler we will be.  And we cannot choose for tomorrow; we can choose only for this moment, this body, this breath.”

-Rolf Gates, Day 30, “Mountain Life,” Meditations on Intention and Being

Day 268 –  I woke up early today to begin my newest adventure–a college level Pre-Calculus course.  The first day requires 4-6 hours of time, or “half a day,” as the professor instructs.  I can only choose to be present in the fringes of my big girl day, but I will do so late into the night, if necessary.  In an hour, I could handily go through the tutorial, but I haven’t worked the problems yet–we cover 4 sections in one module this week, but I’m glad I played with the online homework/quiz site and my graphing calculator, and rented a hard copy of the 6th edition textbook already.

Today, Rolf asks us today why we would want to cultivate a mind capable of one-pointed attention?  Will it benefited us spiritually?  It seems that any challenge or task we encounter throughout the day requires focus and attention to the now.  I thought that maybe taking a difficult math course will help me with this.  Rolf agrees (to an extent), writing:  “If we want to love anything, communicate anything, accomplish anything, we must have a mind that will go along with the plan.”