One of my Facebook pals’ status read, “If the world will end in 2012, then it keeps bothering me why I should study when we are going to die within a year anyway?”[break]
She is talking about a few more months to live; I am talking about just today.
Believe me, I want to be reckless and carefree and frank and stupid. I want to get up and decide on a whim to fly off to Greece instead of going off to work. I want to do everything I know I will regret having done later simply for the fact that there will never be a tomorrow.
Hell, I might even consider robbing a bank if there were no tomorrow.
But then, all for the fear of compromising a better tomorrow because of an impulsive today, I shut up and do what needs to be done. Of course, there are things to be regretted, repercussions to be borne, and justifications to be given – always.
While it is a given that it is very admirable to live by such motivational standards which emphasize on living to the fullest, I just don’t realize how practical it is in today’s context.
With the pressure to perform in this ever-competitive world, and the need to calculate and foresee, how are we to loosen things up? Moreover, with the juxtaposition between notions that emphasize on working hard today for a better tomorrow and living like today is the last day of precious life, it just adds to the incertitude of things.
Think about it: all of us have heard such inspirational quotes that have made us nod our heads in agreement and have left us feeling like we must start abiding by it from that very minute onward. At least I have. But have we really stuck to them? If this phase can last for even a month, then I say that is some achievement! Else, the spell goes away just as easily as it had come on.
But not necessarily, again. A friend of mine, caught up in the spontaneity of the situation, quit his job simply for the fact that he wanted something else from life; what exactly, he was undecided on.
“I was living in the moment, like there was no tomorrow,” he would later tell me. But the very fact that he took that step signaled to me that he saw hope for a better tomorrow; that was why he did something he was passionate about.
Now in your typical clichéd moment, the friend might have encouraged the other friend to live up his dreams and to look for something that satisfied the soul. But we all know it does not work like that.
There are numerous demands and expectations that have to be fulfilled, and the crux of the matter is you need money for each and everything.
Look at, for example, the skyrocketing prices of vegetables in the market, the shortage of petrol, or even posh indulgences like brand names and culinary delights along, say perhaps, Jhamsikhel. All these require you to be made of money. And if an uninspiring yet well-facilitated job has you busy, then I say stick to it! After all, “fate” might or might not work in your favor; there is no guarantee.
My friend’s moment of idealistic epiphany was later met by harsh reality when his satisfaction-craving soul had to come to terms with society and all the conventions in it.
When he had decided to live in that very moment like everything else ceased to exist, he had probably taken it a tad bit seriously. For months, he was left without a means to earn for his dal and bhat. Worse still was that he never found his true passion.
Of course, I appreciate and value life greatly. Death, I honestly believe, is a wonderfully petrifying motivator. However, to live like there is no tomorrow inspires a great deal of havoc too.
If I knew my time was limited, I would use it wisely. But if the time were so little for me to make productive use of it, then rules and order would be the last thing on my mind.
Or perhaps I am just a pessimist. I can see how the whole thing of “living like there is no tomorrow” can be greatly inspiring.
In fact, Steve Jobs shared in one of his interviews that whenever he had a hard time making any decision, he would just ask himself if he would go ahead with the decision if it were his last day to live.
Whenever the answer was no for a few days in a row, he would readjust his routine. It worked for him, and it may work for you.
But my prudent self profusely refuses this theory and instead asks me to stop and think. For an average Joe like me, that is the only way.
Neither do I have a stocked up bank balance that gives me the confidence to say “Screw it! I don’t give a damn” nor do I have a zero Rupee balance that would encourage and excite the risk taker in me.
Not that my life is miserable and boring, but I am just a bit sorted in the head. There are a lot of things I do at the spur of the moment. But for all things that matter greatly, I prefer not to risk it.
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