Rants, Raves & Restless Thoughts

The sand filled rain during the first few days of February brings back memories of the rainy New Year I celebrated back home. I feel nostalgic and at the same time awed at how time flew by so quickly, my leave seemed to be over so soon and now I’m back at work. It reminds me of a film I saw recently, Click, though it was a comedy, the message of its plot can not be taken lightly.

It tells the story of an architect who, in pursuit of success, took for granted the more important aspects of his life without even knowing it. He reached the pinnacle of success but not without a price, time slipped by him so fast and through the years he lost his wife, became strangers with his kids and parents then he ultimately lost his father without even saying how much he had loved him. Only then did he realize his blunder, right at the moment when his own life was just about to end. Fortunately for him, there was a twist in his life story, just like in many movies, it turned out that everything that happened was just a dream and he still had time to change the path he would take.

The lead characters’ story was the kind of life I had sworn not to live, a life focused on financial & material gain but at the price of mass breakdown of all emotional ties with one’s family, an unfair bargain in my point of view. Though I find nothing wrong in investing in a financially secure future, I believe investing in emotions specially with loved ones, is just as important. What good is a nice comfortable house when a person lives alone? What purpose does one’s material wealth serve, when he has no one to share it?  Every material thing or personal accolade a man accumulates won’t matter at the end of the day, for no matter how much he tries, he can not take them beyond the grave.

As I reflect on my own existence, i fear I might tread on the same path as the films’ protagonist, if I’m not wary of how time flies. It is quite easy to get lost in our daily routine; work ten hours a day, twenty six days a month, send money home, repeat for eleven months then take a leave for two months. I’m already into my second year but it seems just like yesterday when I first left home. I have missed almost two years from my kids’ lives, two years worth of laughter, warm hugs and memories we could have made, two years I cannot take back no matter how much I pay or pray.

Time does seem to be always on fast forward, very much similar to the film, Click. And just like in the movie, it often takes a tragic event or extreme heartache to awaken a person to the real meaning of his existence. My own wake up call came roughly three years ago, fortunately for me it didn’t take a dreadful incident but just heartbreaking circumstances to jolt me back to my senses.

One of the essential lessons I learned then, was that change is the only constant thing in this world; friends come & go, love sometimes fades, wounds heal, pain goes away in time, money doesn’t last, children grow up, we grow old and in the end everyone will bite the dust. Accepting the truth that life is fleeting has profoundly affected my outlook in life, though learning that lesson entailed a lot of pain, I am grateful I have realized it sooner (though not soon enough) rather than later.

In real life unlike reel life, we are not afforded a twist in our life story which would allow us to go back in time and change our mistakes or given precognitive dreams of how our life would turn out to be. Just like everyone else we charge blindly into the future, we can only hope that we make the right choices along the way and have the strength to face the consequences of the decisions we made.

p.s. a gem I plucked from the net

WHAT WILL MATTER

by: Michael Josephson

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built;
not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.
What will matter is not your memories,
but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.