Several weeks ago I became aware that a friend has cancer and it seems terminal. It seemed unexpected, which seems to be the usual cancer style. Uninvited, by surprise...almost like a thief in the middle of the night trying to rob you of your most precious possessions... your biggest treasures.
I thought of the plans made after the many years worked, and all the money saved. So many years of waiting and planning just shattered like a mirror that falls on a marble floor. All those plans were severed by a cancer diagnosis.
I have been unable to stop thinking about this since the moment I was given the news. I started to question my own life journey. Am I living life to the fullest? Am I living life like I am going to a specific destination? Am I existing or living? Am I living like I am never dying or like if I will die tomorrow? So many thoughts still crossing my mind and I am filled with sorrow and the realization that life is so fragile, and like Paulo Coelho said - "sometimes it is impossible to stop the river of life". Life has a path, just like a river; we just don't know where or when will meet the ocean.
How insane it is that all our lives we fight to be in control and when we come to the end, we are so powerless. In our culture our jobs rule our world and at the end of the journey our job lowers to a lesser level of importance, and the people and the relationships we sacrificed by it seem to raise to the top. How different is our life perspective when we have less time to live. How valuable time itself feels when its almost gone.
We seem to live like we are going to a destination and at times we just exist and dream about that time in the far future. Most of our lives are spent packing for that "trip" or even trying to not make any stops because they will slow us down. I understand that our jobs are necessary and important, and so is our life. Why it is so hard to find balance? I think is because we feel that our life will always be there and we take it for granted. We stop enjoying our surroundings, smelling the coffee and even savoring it. We stop noticing people around us because we are on the phone or on the Internet. We don't listen to our priest because we are busy checking for texts. We can't enjoy the moment because we are loaded with painful pasts, poorly managed stress, unnecessary emotional burden or because we are planning for the future. We always have a great excuse to not be present when we know that the present is all we have.
Renew you compromise to yourself every morning. Be thankful and grateful. Laugh more, love more and above all, live more. Let's live life so when we get to the end of our journey we are heavy with memories and not regret. Lets be remembered with love and because of the moments and memories we shared with others and not because of the long hours we worked, how productive we were or how well we managed our case loads.
Let's wander without the fear of getting lost. Lets live...just live! Anyone could perform your jobs but no one could live your life.
