Why Do Anything?

Why do we do anything? What is there to gain? Why do we want that?

Life consists of a million different potential experiences put together by the person living it. Their choices will either increase, decrease, or interchange their future potential experiences. The choices that they make are based on the things that they think matter. Potential gains are compared to potential losses and then the probability of success is evaluated and the decision is made. We do things because they matter to us.
Say I believe in a god who values family. That automatically means that I value family. Many situations in my life will conclude a certain way because of my belief and the transitive value that that implies. Now say I believe in the philosophy of "Money over everything." That would be a drastic change in how I went about living my life especially compared to a life based in religion.
The real reason why we do anything is because we want to matter. We assign value to practically everything except ourselves. The value that we find for ourselves is based on the value of the things that are in our lives. No matter what I believe I cannot matter unless things in my life matter to me.

Duke TIP Writing Contest

"What kinds of things do 6th graders generally not talk about?"
"Politics."
"What politics do 6th graders generally not know about?"
"Most politics."
When I was in 6th grade I took part in a Duke TIP writing contest in which we were challenged to write a letter to the president about an issue of our choice. I decided that I wanted to write President Obama about stem cell research.  I had to research everything and include a mix of lots of perspectives from all walks of life.
Because of that letter I started being interested in politics. That is despite the fact that when I wrote the letter my dad had to help me edit it because I was accidentally filibustering. Had that trend continued I might have become a Republican; instead I try to look at each issue holistically and am a conservative libertarian.
I won the contest. I got 250$ for myself and 250$ for my school, which was my household at the time, which was a pretty big deal back in 6th grade. I am pretty sure I used to the money to buy a Play Station 2 and some games.

"I was in the tree"

In March of 2015 I was on a mission trip to Jamaica. I was staying in the basement of a historical church in St. Anne's Bay with the other men on the trip while the women on the trip stayed on the second floor and the dining room/common area was in-between us. We had already bonded a good bit and I decided that I wanted to play hide and go seek. So I got a group together and we started playing cards with the bet that whoever won the card game got to choose the next game we played. I won so we played best two out of three because one of the girls didn't want to play hide and go seek. I ended up winning again so we played a few rounds and then played a few rounds of sardines. Sardines is like hide and go seek except only one person hides and then everyone tries to find them and as they find the person hiding they hide with that person in their spot. I hid in a tree and because of the way I hid myself no one could find me even if they were standing right underneath me and so that ended the night of gameplay. It was hard for some people to believe that I was in the tree.

A Challenge: Memory

I have noticed lately that I have experienced a lot of things and I am still a kid which means that I will probably forget about a lot of it by the time I become a parent. It will probably be at least a decade before I have any kids and I want to be able to tell my kids about the things that I have done in my life. Because of this I am issuing myself a challenge. I challenge myself to write down a different memory each day this week for a whole week. My first memory will be posted before I fall asleep tonight.