Experience

A lot of people say to me, "But, Pat, doesn't being a seminarian mean that you have to give up a lot of the experiences most people have in college?" In fact, it does. There are a whole lot of experiences that most 21-year-olds have had that I have not. There is a lot that I have not done, and, if everything goes according to plan, a lot that I will never do. Even if everything were not to go according to plan, there are certain opportunities that I have willingly passed up, and which I would not then get back. Certainly, the choice to enter the seminary, the choice to pursue what I believed and still believe to be a vocation, has involved sacrifice already, not merely in the future. Won't I miss out on a lot of the "normal" things of college life? Sure, I already have, and I did in high school as well.

But, you know what, I don't lament the fact that I never got drunk on prom night and did things that I might well regret for the rest of my life. I'm not bothered by the fact that I've never had the experience of living in a dorm, and it's okay that I will never get the chance to hang around the campus all day and "live it up" (which is rather low-key in Scranton) with my fellow college students. Why is that okay? After all, for many or most people, these years are filled with so much formative experience, so many memories that shape an entire life and make people what they will always be from now on. So, why is it okay that I have not had those formative experiences? Simply, because I've also never gone skydiving.

Hear me out. What I mean is that we each get only one life, just one. And it's just plain wrong to presume that you can use that one life to have all of the experiences possible. Sure, I've missed out on a lot, and I will continue to miss out on a lot. I am fully aware of what I have missed, but I am also fully aware of what I have chosen in its place, which is what most of the rest of the world misses. I have had experiences, different from the normal ones, to be sure, that have shaped who I am and what I will always be just as much as those other experiences, though in a different way.

A lot of people approach this question as if I were giving up the normal path and getting nothing in return. That isn't the case. I have made my choice, and I have taken a different path. I graduated from high school almost three years ago, and it wasn't like Ferris Beuller's Day Off or The Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink. There were times when I wanted it to be, but it wasn't. Now, it's over, and I'm in college. It isn't like Animal House or Accepted. The rest of my life will not be like When Harry met Sally or The Godfather or The Lord of the Rings. My life will be something different, something without a stereotype and a banal cultural expectation. My life will be different, and that means giving up what is commonplace. I have chosen that, and I continue to choose it every day.