Sometimes I get the feeling that I am simply running the
clock down.
Q: Is that all everyone is essentially doing, occupying
themselves in order to run the clock down?
Q: How many people are living life until they can retire?
Q: How many people in retirement are doing nothing
special, and effectively just running the clock down?
There must be more to life than:
1) Be born ->
2) Be nurtured ->
3) Be educated {arguably modern Western education is all
wrong} ->
4) Get a job and hopefully a career ->
5) Work to retirement ->
6) Retire ->
7) Die!
In the list above; 1, 2 & 7 you cannot do much about. You
have a choice on education. You have a choice on what job/career you do (maybe
not much choice, and maybe you decide you don’t want a job/career). You have a
choice on how long to work for and whether to retire or not.
I’m at step 5. I’m very lucky to have a great job, but I’m
not feeling fulfilled. In all honesty, I’m feeling like I’m wishing weeks and
months away so I can get ever closer to a dream of retirement which might never
be a reality. I want to retire but I don’t want to retire and do nothing - that
is, not just retire and then sit in front of the crap box (television) until I
finally keel over. I am years away from having a decent retirement fund.
Life is essentially very silly. You were dead once. Then suddenly
you are alive. Then you are dead again. Animals know that the point of life is
simply to be alive, they do not make plans, they live the moment, they live now;
birth, life, and death are not a thought to them, and are they lucky for that?
If I was truly happy and fulfilled in my accidentally
stumbled upon career path, I would not be having these thoughts. I would wake up
every morning excited for another day doing fulfilling work.
Q: Should I quit my unfulfilling job?
The reality is that I’m not likely to quit my job. The
pay is too good and I have too many debts and outgoings. Also, I foolishly
still desire nice things. And my imagination is not up to the job of finding
something better paid and more fulfilling today.
Q: Where does that leave me? Running the clock down?
We can learn from animals. Animals with no concept of past
and future, of life and death, just living in the now.
Be born again in the morning, all full of wonder for the
day ahead.
Live the day to the best of your abilities, like it is
your only day of life on this planet.
Then embrace death at night to be reborn once again.
The cycle of life / the wave of life (everything is a
wave):
Death -> Life -> Death -> Life ... and on!
