“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.” - Sylvia Plath
Whenever we are faced with the question of our mortality, we tend to reevaluate our priorities. All the what ifs, all the I want to, gain prominence. People you take for granted, dreams in the backburner, your own growth as a person , everything starts to emerge from the shadows. There is a thing about this modern life. We live mindlessly. In the name of being busy, we just fast forward our life. Being busy is not an achievement, it is just skipping on building moments that can be memorable.
I can't say for others, but for me, weekdays merge into one block of hazy memory of nothing. I love what I do, yet there is always this thought niggling at the back of my mind if I am doing the best of what I can with this life? If I am being true to myself and if I am missing out on living? Life is limitless and full of possibilities and I want the choice to choose the possibilities. I want to have the courage step out, to explore, to stretch the limits to where I feel uncomfortable. When you are a natural optimist, it is easier to believe in all that you want, but for a pessimist/realist, you are grounded by your experiences and that limits you to try and fly into lands of unknown.
Peeling off our layers of prenotions set by our experience requires contemplation which in turn requires our minds to be still. We keep ourselves busy, because it is the easiest way to live , and because either we are too lazy to live any other way or maybe because it is a scary experience and we might not like what we see. All of us at some time faced the relentless restlessness, the splinter in our soul that just keeps nagging us and which we learn to live with. Yet when we stop to feel it, we realize that it has been embedded too deep. This restless feeling, this lack of belonging, is washed away by our day to day living, just occasionally leaving a stain behind as a reminder, which we choose to ignore.
I would be lying if I don't think about options - options in career, in lifestyle (living on an island sounds great or maybe a cabin in the woods or maybe classy downtown), yet dreaming the improbable is what makes us human and real.
I truly believe that to be a better human being, to live life to the fullest, to experience life like only we can do, we need to know ourselves. Time and again , we need to unload the junk mail in our head and heal the bruises to our hearts. Rushing through life is not living. I cannot experience all I want, I cannot be all I want, but there is a liberation when you are aware of your desire
