The package deal you get with life is decisions. Maybe you'll buy Fallout 3 instead of Fable 2 over the weekend (like me!). Maybe you'll choose to go to UC Davis instead of UC Berkeley. Maybe you'll become a lawyer instead of a big-shot movie director. Maybe you'll be miserable instead of happy. It all hinges on the choices we're confronted with in life. How you go about these decisions determines everything. Effectively, our lives are nothing more than a compilation of decision and effect. One thing leads to another, in a chain of consequences. But all of it is played out by us, the actors on the stage of life, pardon the incredibly cliched metaphor.
And the path you walk is never certain. You may abandon it and choose something else. The comforting certainty behind life is that you will always be uncertain, in a cruel twist of irony. Always will you wonder "what if?" But I find that pondering the alternate consequence is a waste of time. It will never happen, unless you go back in time and make it so. Abandon what you're doing, perhaps, and maybe you'll change and gain the alternative. Half of life is wondering what life is, but it's not about wondering what life could be. If it could be something, go out and make it that way. Summon what energy you have to achieve what you want.
We all make stupid choices in life. "Oh man, I shouldn't have robbed that old lady." "Oh man, I shouldn't have shot down that sexy Asian dude." "Oh man, I shouldn't have thrown my puppies into the washing machine so I wouldn't have to wash them." Our lives shouldn't revolve perpetually around them, which is evoking the "don't think about what could be" argument again.
I guess my entire point is simply this: contemplate your choices. Weigh the risks and benefits. And if your call was wrong, don't linger on it. Move on. Move past it. If you killed someone, repent. That kind of thing. Bad example that may be, but it conveys my point adequately enough. A life of regrets and wonder is, in the words of Eddie Vedder and the awesome band that is Pearl Jam, "LIFE WASTED!"
PS. Do we, do we know when we fly?
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1 comment:
Summarized self-directed advice always follows the same format.
Short sentence with one point. Direction to self. Short again. Do this and that. Guess what, short. Short sentence is short. Throw in long sentence, separated into, short clauses. Etc.
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