Stop Living, As If You Will Live Forever

Follow your passion, get a life, you will only live once & many other such motivational quotes inspire every ounce of our blood every now & then. These words of wisdom help us to rise from the ashes & help us in performing best. Motivation is never a problem nowdays, especially with the rise of social media as more & more people have access to the internet & can get motivated at any hour of the day. Although, life is meant to be simple, yet we ruin it by running millions of thoughts. Thoughts are not the only reason for our misery, we become somber by looking at other people’s lives & forget what makes us happy. Our happiness depends on other people’s happiness. We often feel we are losing on life if we don’t post happy pictures on Instagram, Facebook, or any other social media platforms. So, we do things to impress people we don’t know. While doing so, we lose ourselves & that leads to a sad & unsatisfied life. There are many layers to life & explaining it in simple terms is certainly not easy. With some recent events in my life, I realized that we live here as if we are here forever. We want to impress others so that other form good opinions of ourselves. Rather than finding what makes us happy, we rely on the outer world to provide this. With our greed for wealth, fame, luxury, etc. We are continuously running behind something & somewhere. We are so much fascinated with the future that we forget about the present. But, like everything, motivation, thoughts, healths, etc, are all perishable. So, we need to remind ourselves again & again our purpose in life & remember we are not here forever.

Our life is only for us, to make it, create it, live it & do whatever you feel is worthy of your time. Here is one of the contradictions of life. What if we like to copy others & love to bully them. Then the question arises, are you happy while doing that? Most of us determine our happiness based on the standards set by society & follow rules set by them. We do what is best according to society & not by our own wit. The biggest problem of following other’s advice is not the path but lack of love for the work. We are doing it, not because it may or may not make us happy, but because it brings us stability. As per me, if you are not happy, you are already half dead. Happiness is grossly underrated & people often mistake happiness with the amount of wealth; which is a basic mistake everyone is making. There is no correlation between how much a person is making with how happy a person is. Happiness is intrinsic & hardly anyone is aware of this fact. We relate happiness with wealth & thus follow wealth to reach happiness.

If one looks closely enough, we live in the world for around 70 years. Out of which, in starting 16 years, we are knowing about the world & figuring out our interests. From 50 to 70, our health deteriorates & we may or may not be in great physical shape. That leaves us around 3 decades to live & how we live those 30 years determines how fulfilling lives we have lived. Even during these 30 years, we are busy sleeping, enjoying, traveling, eating, drinking, partying, etc. That left us with a handful of years & even during our short stay we are constantly frowning & drowning in our sorrows. But, for a moment, if we kill our fears & pursue things we want in our life, we can do wonders. If the ultimate truth is death, then why to pursue something that we love?

Let’s start with life. What is life to you? One of the most common answers is it is “Unpredictable.” Nobody can confidently say that they have planned everything in life even, the time of death bed. There are many flavors to life & unpredictability fits in it perfectly fine. How often it has happened, that we think something & it happens completely opposite. We are not sure if by taking specific steps we will reach our destination & the same has been mentioned in the holy books as well. One shall focus on process & not on results. Thus, there is no guarantee that you can reach your goals while following a specific path. As there are many paths to goals. No two days are same as time is constantly changing. There are so many granular portions that make up a life. So even if there is some change in any of these parts, the whole system changes. Hence, it makes life unpredictable.

Like the only sane person in the world. We want to control our life, we carefully choose our path & assuming every missing piece will fall in the place (wishful thinking). We are so engrossed in the positivity that we ignore all the challenges & aspects which are not in our control. We can only control a handful of things in our life & still we feel, we are king of this life & can pull off anything. One can call it arrogance or wishful thinking or any fancy name one can think of. Yet, we can’t even predict if we will be in a healthy condition after the end of the day. It is so unpredictable & uncontrollable.

This is not a sad or depressing post. However, if you ever observe your surroundings with an open mind. One can come across many incidents where people left us without any problem & the reasons maybe even weirder in some of the cases. Sometimes without any fault of one, he or she finds him or herself in dreaded condition. Even the present situation of covid is another example of how unpredictable it is in nature. A small virus shuts down the world for good six months & even after six months we are reluctant to resume our normal life. So, if we can’t control even the most important factors that can ruin our life. How can we be sane enough to think life is ours & we are here forever?

After reaching adolescence, our mind, body & thinking changes drastically. We are about to reach our prime & it seems nothing is impossible. Our dreams fuels our life & like an animal preying on its food. We follow our goals & some of us eventually reach there. Yet, only a handful of people are such dedicated & determined. Most of us are still processing what we want in life & this vicious cycle of finding what we want carries on till we lose our zeal for the goal. We start our rat race to earn money without any effort to rise mentally & emotionally. We start to value money, property, assets in such high regard than the nature of human beings that we start seeing life through these parameters only. We forget that all the materialistic things are perishable, but the impression of one person lasts. Because of which we still remember the heroes from hundreds of years back.

We are ready to cheat, hurt or use any other method to get what we want & if this happens successfully, we are creating an example for other people to follow & each one of such people uses dirty tricks worse than the others to reach higher. We do all the bad things for what? For the life that we want to control & dictate every aspect of it. Yet, none of us can reach this stage. Even for the most powerful ones, life is unpredictable & uncertain.

We are here only for the only number of years & how we impact the world to the best of our efforts shall be our motive. There is no wrong in having a goal & reaching it by working hard. Yet, that doesn’t give us the right to harm anybody, no matter how powerful we are, we should respect others & act humanly. For people who are not able to find the work, we love to do.For some, it is photography, for some traveling, for some coding & the list goes on. Don’t get disappointed keep looking for it as a child. Try different things & see if something clicks. Sometimes, things will not be simple & straightforward. Yet, we should try, as if we don’t have dreams, then what is left in life. When things are so uncertain & unpredictable & there is no certainty if we can see the next day. We should live our life like it is our last day & start doing what we love to do.

Our ancestors didn’t have such opportunities due to lack of finances, food & infrastructure made it hard for them to pursue their dreams. However, we are in one of the most comfortable times in the world. Technology is changing every day, rather than every minute. After completing our daily roles & responsibilities, we can pursue our dreams. Even if one doesn’t have a dream they can enjoy family time or enjoy any other things that one does. But, don’t forget to appreciate life. Don’t say no to things that are important to you, but can’t do because of commitment, don’t ignore the friend who wants to have a drink with you, don’t skip that phonecall when someone calls you to know about you. But, remember your priorities, you can’t pick every call that is not good for you, you can’t go out drinking every day with people. One has to set priorities & follow it. Balance every aspect so that you can live fully. The knowledge is unlimited, but the only thing missing is our interests.