‘‘ Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.’’
-William James (1842 - 1910)
And, today is one of these days. The bright sunlight, effervescent in it's strength and ever so much more accentuated by the frigid cold accompanying it.
I had recently wished a friend for her birthday, and she said something along the lines of 'celebrating dying', and I made a remark about how she had such an optimistic way of looking at things. (Obviously accompanied by the requisite eye-rolling.) and she said that she's just very realistic, we are dying.
I agree. But there's something too pessimistic and final about that kind of thinking, to my thinking anyways. I prefer focussing on the fact that we're living, because there are so many ways of being able to actually live. Counting down the moments toward death does nothing other than give me the heeby-jeebies akin to frantically trying to answer the questions to a final exam when the invigilator has announced you've got just five minutes remaining and you're wondering how the hell can that be possible, didn't you just begin?
And I don't know about you, but I could do without the panic attacks.
But then she came out with a curve-ball of a perspective, that made me agree also, because although it wasn't new to my way of thinking, it was just something that gave me a mini-revelation.
"To me it helps to focus on dying cause then I remember that none of the silly-stuff that happens matter in the grand scheme of things."
And that's when I realized: we're both right. How can we both be right? Because that's just it - life is about balance. We have to keep remembering that we need to hold onto the little moments that make up life, those moments which take us forward, and allow us to cherish life, to be productive, that make it feel as if you're living. But then, at the same time, we need to allow ourselves to look forward at what and where we want to go, so that we can better weigh the things that are bothering us today and realize that they do not matter in the long run.
So what if someone else took your seat on the bus? So what if a friend said or did something that you don't like? In the long run what does it matter? Does it help you to dwell on the problem and sulk or rail against the unfairness of life? No. (Okay, maybe it helps to vent a bit, but that shouldn't last days or weeks, and it shouldn't mean that we're going to act like asses about it and become petty and bitter.)
I always think of faith as something you either do, or don't. There cannot be any grey. It's like jumping off a building - you either do, or you don't. You can't jump halfway. Faith is like that - even if you have the tiniest inkling of doubt, that's it; Sorry, you can't get what you want because you don't believe you will.
Sometimes, you get what you want and you realize that's not what you want anymore. And sometimes, you've gone on believing in what you want so much that one day you're left with only the confidence your belief has given you, but you've realized that you're doing just fine without what you started out wanting.
It's like telling yourself that Spring will be back in just a few months, and hey despite the warnings of the world coming to an end or global warming, we still believe it, because our internal calculator just does the statistics for us and supports our belief that Spring shall return. But in the meantime we've got this drastic cold winter, but that's okay because we have faith in Spring. So in that knowledge, we can allow ourselves to enjoy the first snowfall, to bundle up with our scarves and gloves, and enjoy the time we do have today.
I have always found that believing in that which you want is what makes the path towards what you want easier and smoother. You can't want something and believe that you'll never get it. That's like standing at the start of the race and not moving, and still wanting to reach the finish line first. And, if there is something I've learnt, most of the time, what we need to believe in isn't that far. What you need to believe in most is so close that you could poke it in the eye, and you'd go blind.
