By Greg Evans
When I grow up I want to sit behind a desk or counter doing work I don't really like for a boss I despise, walking into work Monday morning thinking how darn short the weekend was and how far away Friday afternoon is which seems like a light-year. I do my time collecting a lousy or decent pay check that may be enough to allow me to save up for retirement at age 75 and then I will sit around watching reality television and eating chicken fingers until my children can't take it anymore and put me into an old person's facility where I can rot away or God willing before being shipped off to such a place a massive heart attack takes me." How many children have you heard say such things when they are asked what they want to be when they grow up?
T.S. Eliot once said, "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." I don't know if it had anything to do with the spider bite, the exceptional physical reaction or the fear of the unknown having never been speared by such a poisonous creature before, but I have found myself thinking much more about mortality than I ever had in the past. That moment when the bells toll. I sat down a few days after the attack, my wrist at the time still aching and slightly itchy, the flesh still being devoured by the hellacious venom and I rudimentarily pondered mortality. What is the meaning of life? Of everything or anything? Most people don't want to think about it. It is a scary thought when you start to get down to the nitty gritty. We are born, live fairly normal routine lives and then we pass on. But in those short years that we are living and learning and seeing and loving and hurting and thinking and planning and working and saving and spending and healing and soaring, at that moment when you gasp that last breath will you think to yourself, "I wouldn't have done anything different," or would you say, "thank heavens this execrable life is finally over!"
One thing I came to realize is that too many people lose their ability to believe in their dreams. The hard scrabble life, irking out a meager living, trying to guide contemptible children in the right direction in a world so seemingly filled with attractive and lurid vices. Go after those dreams, doesn't matter whether you are 16 or 69. I heard a story one day about a man in his sixties who was nearing retirement decided that he was going to quit his job and begin a new career. He was going to pursue the dream of his youth and become a practicing attorney. So this man enrolled into a law program and found going back to school was harder than he had thought it would be but he refused to quit. He studied with students most of whom were 45+ years younger than him. Three years later he earned himself a JD. The next step on his journey was the state bar exam. This man took the exam and failed. He took it a second time and failed. He took it a third time and failed. It wasn't until his sixth try that he finally passed the exam and became a licensed attorney and went on to have a successful law practice that spanned twenty years. He finally retired in his mid-eighties. His story is one I think about sometimes when I think life has hit a lull or I feel as if I am in my early nineties instead of my early thirties. The point of the story is to go after it because tomorrow you could take a step and a bolt of lighting may come out of the blue sky and have your number. The beauty of life is that we are given a freewill to go out and make this life what we want to make it. I see it all the time, people who speak of and see themselves as being trapped. The reality is that you are never truly trapped, you just aren't taking the correct angle. There is no point in looking at another's life and wishing that you had their life because how can life have any meaning if you aren't the one to carve it out, to recognize your talents, dreams and go after them with your whole heart and soul. Each and every one of you who wakes up tomorrow and decides that it is the day you are going to begin transforming yourself into that curious dreamer you were when you were five. You can bet there will be plenty of people putting you down, telling you to get your head on straight, telling you that you are down right nuts. Artist Jackson Pollock was the worst drawer in his class. His own brother was a more talented artist then he was but Jackson's paintings today sell in the Hundreds of millions. Walt Disney worked for a newspaper but was fired and told by his editor that he didn't have any creativity. These people who are everywhere spreading their poison trying to make you feel small. The same people who cut you off in traffic and don't pick up their dog's business in your front yard, they talk on cell phones in nice restaurants and steal your morning newspaper.
Let me tell you another quick story about a Chinese playwright named Gao Xingjian who in 1983 was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer. There was nothing he could do but wait to die. A few weeks later a second examination revealed that the cancer had gone away. Gao was given a second chance at life. Due to his inflammatory writing he was on the verge of being sent away to a prison farm because of the repressive government and he packed up a few belongings and took off on a soul searching journey. He traveled to ancient fortresses and climbed enchanting mountains. For five months he journeyed and took notes and upon returning to his home he wrote a novel called Soul Mountain that is a study as well as ponders the human soul. Gao went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. IT just goes to show you that sometimes taking a risk and wandering out to the edge uncovers things about you that you may not have realized or if nothing else creates satisfaction. Gao went in search of the meaning of life. I don't know whether or not he found it, but he "lived" and as far as I am concerned that there is the meaning of life. Get up tomorrow and really live.
No comments:
Post a Comment