Thoughts and Quotes

Die Today. You can choose to Live Tomorrow.

The camera men are doing their job fantastically well. They are recording the entire wedding in detail. So what if the rest of the family sitting in the front of the stage are not able to view the main wedding, at all. We can always view the recording later.

Isn’t this how we constantly experience the most precious moments of our lives? Even before we have lived them, we record them. Annual days, birthday parties, first words, marriage proposals and even weddings are all viewed by us, only from behind a camera lens. So much so, that in order to ensure that the camera recording is perfect, we let go of the live experience completely. Such a shame!

Sadly this camera mania is just a metaphor of our larger lifestyle. We constantly invest time, money and emotions carefully crafting our future. So what, if we forego some pieces of our present in the process!?! All this effort towards building the future is going to be completely worth it, if we can sit back and relax in the future. This is what we have been taught since childhood. Study now, play later. Work hard, build a career. You will have enough years to enjoy when you grow old. We try and save all the good things for the future, as if the present is a punishment, not meant to be enjoyed. If I were to extrapolate this in a dramatic way, it would be equivalent to  choosing to die first, so that we can live happily, later.

Pessimists will argue that there is a reason we save and invest for the future. We don’t want to be begging on the road when we are 65. I completely agree! However, what is the guarantee any one of us will live till we are 65? For the sake of the argument, let’s consider that we are lucky enough to have lived till we are 65. What is the guarantee that all the material wealth we have accumulated in our lives will survive along with us? We live in the world of economic uncertainties and there is no form of investment that is absolutely fail proof. Yes, you may choose to buy an independent island and declare it your own sovereign country. Even then, there is no guarantee that you will not be overthrown by a neighboring island plus there is global warming, anyways. Unfortunately gold, stock, property or even Swiss dollars don’t come with a life time guarantee.

Bottom line, the only thing guaranteed in this life is the present moment that we have. If we cannot live it completely, right here, right now, it is not worth saving for the future, either. Work hard towards the things that matter to you, not the things that promise future security. The only way to secure your future happiness is to build a life around the things that make you happy today.

For once I will also think on behalf of the pessimists, “What if you are not able to save enough doing the thing that you love? You might end up begging on the street when you are 65”. The chances of you ending up begging are honestly much higher if you are not working on what you love, today. Even if, what you love does not guarantee a perfect future, at least it has already guaranteed a perfect present.

P.S. – Next time a camera man blocks my view, don’t hold me responsible for the consequences.

I am an ex-Management Consultant and a successful entrepreneur having close to twenty years of corporate experience. I am currently focusing full time on being a homeschooling parent while researching on the future of education and alternate methods of education. I am also a Vedic Math Trainer, an Operations Manager at a business run by her children and a philanthropist working with tens of other under privileged children. I bring all my past and current experiences together in the form of writing blogs. Using these blogs I wish to create awareness in parents, caregivers and educators about parenting, education and holistic living.