What if the job you had was the only one you would ever have?
Would you work at it differently?
Would you coast until retirement?
Would you seek to work harder to make it successful
as it is the only one?
What if the marriage you had was the only one you would ever have?
Would you treat it differently?
Would you work at working it out more?
Would you constrain wild imaginings as falsehoods instead of options,
flame and ash intead of possibilities?
What if the life you had was the only one you would ever have?
Would you seek to live more boldly?
Would you seek to love more fully?
Would you seek to try things more often and with greater zeal
knowing that it might be the only chance you get?
What would happen if this all turned out to be true?
What if there is nothing really wrong with your life, you just have this tightening feeling inside, that says that you were brought here to do more than you are doing now, to be more than you are now, to change the world for the better in some way, to seek the truth and the meaning.
ReplyDeleteWhat if you feel confined by the boundaries of your current life, and because it is so familiar and comforting in its routine, you feel like the boundaries are getting smaller and smaller every day.
What if you waited too long in the current status quo, that now you desire a change that will shatter the way you live now, a fresh start if you wish. You are not afraid for yourself, as it will not change who you are in the very core of your being, but you feel that it will allow you to spread your wings.
What if your decision changes and hurts other people, do you hope that they will find peace and that lives will proceed in a better direction? What if they want for everything to stay the same, and you know how much that influences you. Would you chose their wishes over yours?
What if you know what you have and what you are giving up in hopes for a new direction, for an exploration of your potential. You don’t really care about the things you will give up, more so the people to whom you will have to say “it was great to know you, thank you for everything, I treasure you and respect you, but I need to go now.”
What if there is no truth. What if everything is just a journey filled with lessons we have to master. What if you are standing and looking at two different lessons, which one should you choose? What if there is only one reality and everything we do is just a race to realize that, to make peace with that, to know that. Do then any changes matter?
Road not Taken (Robert Frost)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
WOULD YOU THEN make the essential change, would you make the leap? Would you be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become?
WHAT IF it all doesn’t matter in the end…
Silverline
Thank you for your comment.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. A good thought. My thought is mostly along the lines that I myself (I'll only target myself, but I think that it applies to a great deal of other people as well) give up on what I have in lieu of something of the "Something out there", rather than working through the issues. Oftentimes it seems we treat people and situations as disposables to be moved on with rather than situations to be worked through. I can certainly say that my best growth has always occurred working through situations as they occur rather than taking the way out of walking away and not dealing with it.
It's a balance of course, knowing when you are confronting real boundaries and when you are merely looking for an excuse to avoid a situation. It's true that sometimes I probably use staying with something to avoid reaching new boundaries; it's also fair to say that working through things (like my children) rather than abandoning them for personal fulfillment (and less stress) is probably the better course of action as well.
And if it doesn't matter in the end? There's a point in which one can say that God's will be accomplished regardless of what we do; it's also fair to say that each of us are responsible for doing the best we have with what we're given. To that extent, it does matter.