Which of these two questions? What does life have to offer us? Or, what do we have to offer life?
I think it’s both, but probably more of the latter. There’s so much in life that we can make the most of, and there is so much in us that we can make of life.
We sometimes tend to talk about life as though it were a ready-made object to hold or throw away. The breath is in us; so is the heart and the mind; these are what we can use to make of life. Why do we waste our breath in unimportant talks…our minds in useless thoughts…and our hearts in desperate feelings? Why can’t we breathe positive energy through positive talks, thoughts and feelings? I often wonder…but the irony of my wondering about this is my own negativity.
Why is it that we have likes and dislikes? Why can’t we just learn to like someone or something? For instance, if we do not like the Director, either we want to leave the organization or wish the Director would leave. Is there really such a thing as a bad manager/leader or is it a creation of our own minds? Is it our own disgusting reflection we see in the person? Will the reflection change when a new director joins? Or, are we going to still dislike the person but from a different angle? Our own reflection, after all!
Kinda tricky…the many kinds of lives we live in one lifetime. The life of an employee. The life of a spouse. The life of a parent. The life of a son/daughter. The life of a friend. The life of an office colleague. The life of a citizen. And so on.
Are these lives we make, or lives we take as offered? Is it having to cope with these many lives that’s a problem? Imagine the demand on human capacity to live so many lives! How do we strike a balance?
I’ve read about some successful people and it’s usually personal success the books talk about. “I dreamt, ran after my dream and that’s how I am where I am.” When you read into the depth of the person’s life, you discover at what or whose expense this person has gained success. There may be materialistic gains, but at the same time loss of happiness of being with one’s family. You may be a CEO, but your very dear friend cannot come anywhere near you and you miss friendship. You may be living in a palatial home of your own surrounded by a tall fence and you feel you have earned the luxury you yearned, but you may be lonely at heart with no friends visiting you and you not able to visit friends. You feel you need the security of a concrete structure, but in actual fact when you’re in trouble it is friends and relatives that you need. Where is the balance?
Life somehow has many good things in store for us, but we tend to choose to offer nothing to life. We keep expecting…and are never satisfied. I think that’s because we do not really make good use of our breath, mind and heart. We think we’re using them, but in actual fact we are static. We wait for offers, do nothing much, and then complain that life is disappointing.
I say life needs to be breathed into. Life needs to be worked on with our minds. Life needs to be felt with our hearts.
We need to offer to life as much as life has to offer to us. Nothing is ready-made. To think so is to be static and static is boring.
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