Life is a mystery. We think we have a plan, that we have it all figured out. That is a comfortable lie we tell ourselves to get through our days. In reality, the story line turns on a dime, throwing all well made plans in disarray. We have no way of knowing how the story ends.
Along the way, life challenges us to grow. We were never meant to be satisfied with the status quo. We were meant to grow, to learn to become more. We were meant to rise to meet whatever is coming our way head on. The world would deny us this heritage as it tries to sell us on the easy life. The world pushes the idea at us that we should have no worries. The world whispers in our receptive ears that there should be a way to avoid hardships, and cruise around stubborn obstacles like they are nothing. We are special. We should be able to slip by any problems. And if all that fails then we can always chemically dull our emotional reaction to life’s darts and slings as we pursue the good life, the easy life…what we know we deserve in life. Unfortunately, the attempt to avoid difficulties usually just increases the suffering we experience as we are forced to navigate the rough terrain. No one gets out alive. Everyone has scars, internal or external.
Many of us have a ‘bucket list’ of things we want to do or see or experience some day. That list may be extravagant, depending on the accumulation of wealth before it can be realized. That list might be more down to earth or home centric. Maybe we want to spend more time with family, or travel to see distant friends. Maybe, we want to travel to see natural wonders, or go to great cities and experience what they have to offer. Whatever is on your list, don’t wait!
You may wake up one day and realize your health won’t stand the strain of travel, or those distant friends have passed on. Maybe that time you wanted with your family when the demands of work shrank is running into the time intensive career demands of grown children. Where did that time go? Here you stand, but where are they? Hey mom, hey dad we’ll have to work this holiday. We will see you soon!
Maybe that retirement with a beloved spouse is being spent nursing that spouse through an unexpected severe illness. As Jim Morrison so plaintively put it in Roadhouse Blues, ‘the future is uncertain and the end is always near.’ Don’t wait! Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have time. There are no guarantees.
What is on your ‘bucket list’? I want to drive through a giant redwood tree, to stick my toes in the Pacific Ocean, I want to see the bears catch the salmon at Katmai, and stand on an active volcano. I want to see the sun set over the western ocean. I want to stand in Death Valley at high noon in July. I want to camp on a semi-tropical island. I want to see the Northern Lights. I want to explore, to embrace the nomad that lurks in my soul.
Let’s go! I am done with the waiting.
Theoriginalneanderthal 