I’ve included some photos from this weekend. The full photoset is embedded below and you can view all of them on Flickr.
For the longest time, I’ve been told living today as if it was your last is something you should strive to achieve but most people, if it was really their last would call in to work, go on a shopping spree or potentially do horrible things. In other words, we would all act like ourselves. I admit that we’re all animals so how people would act if the world was going to end wouldn’t surprise me. I’m not sure what I would do actually. How would I act? I was out with a friend last night and we were having tea and fruit as this conversation arose.
We began talking about religion because she pointed out that my Facebook profile said I’m a Buddhist. I laughed and explained that I generalize things a bit because saying exactly what philosophies and concepts I choose to live by would not fit in Facebook’s religion section. I briefly explained a bit about my beliefs and immediately shared with her the fact that I don’t follow “commandments” or “laws” or “rules” that will enable me to get into heaven or some other “location” that people speak of. However, it’s important to address the fact that all religions have similar concepts of the afterlife to the point that I can generalize any modern popular religion to make it sound like another simply by removing the nouns we use to describe god or the afterlife.
Instead, I told her about how I live and less about how I will die and where I will go at that time. My father has not taught me anything per se and he’s only given me lessons and pointed the way for me to go in order to reach my own conclusions and understandings of how things work. At this time in my life, I simply live each day to the fullest. My glass is empty every morning when I wake up. There’s no alarm clock but my apartment faces the sunrise and I open my blinds before going to sleep. At 7:30, the sun wakes me up and I pour a glass of carrot juice and read the paper. Yes, about 6 months ago I started subscribing to the New York Times. It’s a great way to keep up and I love the feel of newspaper.
My glass sits empty and by the time I go to sleep, it’s completely full; brimming in fact of knowledge that’s useful and a lot that’s not useful at all. My experiences, lessons and feelings that entered my body and mind that day are often life-altering but I clear my head and medidate before going to sleep. This 15 minutes of silence will take my virtual glass and pour it out. When it’s time to sleep, I don’t dream (or at least I don’t remember them), I don’t wake up, toss or turn. I sleep until the sun wakes me up. It’s great and perfect and I never wake up stressed.
Every day is great because I get to do whatever I want and what I want to do is work, help people and connect with others. I don’t have a lot of possessions. Beyond my bicycle, a few clothes and my computers, I don’t own anything. I don’t have CDs & DVDs or childhood photos (that aren’t digital) or old yearbooks. I don’t have any furniture besides my bed and even my shoe collection is pretty slim. At work, I have a task list and I usually complete it. After work, I choose who I want to be with and who gets my time. Sometimes, I’ll read and write (like I am now) and other times I’ll think of someone who I’d like to see and will call them up for tea or dinner.
At each moment in my day, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. I told my friend this last night. I said, if today was my last day, I’d still be sitting here with you, sipping tea and listening to your stories. If there’s ever a time when I don’t feel that way about a person, place or occupation, it’s time to change. No amount of money, comfort or task is as important as being completely in love and present in what you’re doing at this time.
I have a bad day but the next day, I’ll choose to work from home or take the day off or simply try something new for one day and see if I like it. My work is flexible because I am flexible. I like to believe that I live each day as if it were my last but I won’t really know until that day comes. However, as I finish this blog post, I think about the last 20 minutes and how there’s really nothing else I wanted or needed to do. My stomach just growled so I’m going to go grab a salad. Thank you, as always, for reading.
Side-Note: My blog posts have changed a bit lately. I’ve gotten a few complaints but it’s in line with what I was saying with this post. I don’t care about writing about technology right now. There are too many blogs doing that and I’m not going to force myself to write technical content when I don’t really feel like it right now. next month, I’ll feel sporty or adventurous or technical and I’ll write about that. Sorry all but it’s a personal blog and I know this is letting most of you down. This blog is for me and I’m always grateful to anyone that stops by to read and say hello.