My life is going to get very
adventurous for the next few months. Not just because it is pretty routine
otherwise, but by all measures I guess! My seatbelts are on, hehe.
These days when I have to make a
decision, I ask myself a - what might seem like - a morbid question. What would
I have done if I was going to die tomorrow? Seen from this perspective, there
is a lot more clarity. Would I do what I do day in, day out, have breakfast, go
through the motions, etc or would I for instance see a part of the world I have
never seen? Or be with people I don't get to be with often? I have for some
years now realised that an experience in itself is worth more than material
possessions. Of course, not all experiences have value for me. I wouldn't care
for, for instance, bungee jumping or sky diving. But each to their own. Maybe
for some people these would be of value. Coming to my original point, by asking
myself this stark question, I realised that ordinarily we just go on as if our
lives (and others') are infinite. Our decisions are based on this assumption of
longevity. In a way we do have to assume this if we are to have security into
the future but it seems to me we are so caught up with that secure future that
we are never making decisions for the present. If I knew I was going to die
tomorrow, I would do the things that actually give me joy today. In the absence
of this 'deadline', we make choices that are just sound and sensible from a
future perspective. These are also choices that everyone else is generally
making because everyone is looking to the future. Maybe why when people do
things that are not the norm we wonder what's got into them but actually they
might be doing what they want to do now or what brings them happiness, more
conscious of their finitude than we are.
As someone said, the ships in the
harbour are safe but that is not what ships are built for. What would be the
use of a safe and secure future at the cost of always staying in the harbour...
never finding out what we are built for?
posted by Sylvia D'souza at 12:42 am
0 comments