You are not your schedule. Your priorities. Your unfulfilled tasks. Your relentless worries.
We are, in fact, very separate from these concepts. But for practicality’s purposes and old habit, it’s very easy to fall in the trap of conflating our identity to the duties of our lives. In reality, we are merely a bag of bones dictated by a brain, and we can live and die precisely as we please. Though we all know this to be true, somehow, putting this knowledge into practice to lead a meaningful life can be prove difficult.
Today, on my way home, I was filled with the usual thoughts. What will the rest of my night look like? Will I be able to make use of the few hours left after work to put time into my podcast? Will I be able to tell the story well? Will I inspire others?
Thoughts wandered to groceries, upcoming engagements, important appointments, and things I couldn't afford to let up on.
Then I saw the eclipse-black trees outlining the overcast night sky. Almost entirely outside of my control, I felt the weight of these responsibilities lift. It was such a relief my eyes became misty. I stopped my trek home to stare at the sky for several minutes, encouraging myself to not think of anything else. And this is where things really started to click.
It wasn't that I was freed of these responsibilities, or that I henceforth planned not to pursue them. Rather, it was the simple awareness, the reminder, that all the facets of my life, in one way or another, I've chosen to do. And should I choose not to chase them, I may very well do so. After all, nothing forces us to be miserable. We have all, one way or another, decided to live out our lives in precisely the manner they are currently unfolding. It just can be overwhelming at times.
Still, despite all our power and comforts, we seem almost determined to be unhappy with our lives, rather than inspired by the fact that we continually choose to live at all.
How soon will all this be taken away? Every day, we do something for the last time. Even if it's having coffee in the morning for the last thousandth time. That's the last thousandth coffee you've just had. And tomorrow, that one may very well be the last of the last. For these thoughts and words and hundreds more, I was once more happy beneath the night sky ... because I made the decision to savor it all.
For all the ambiguities of the human psyche, of this certainty I am unshaken: it is because life ends that it is beautiful.
I am not certain how to be entirely free from the world’s obligations, our daily tasks and monotonies. But I am, slowly and surely, coming to understand the art of enjoying it all, regardless.
