I’m at the airport now, waiting to board my flight to Paris. I have never been to Europe, and this was one of the things on my bucket list that I really wanted to chalk off. I told myself a few months ago that I would stop deferring any major life plans because of “practical reasons”. Along with that, I decided that I didn’t want to be “practical” anymore, whatever that means. I want to look back and witness a life of adventures, not a life where I excelled being practical.
I booked this trip a couple months ago. Back then I knew I needed to do this trip, but that need has increased exponentially since then. I didn’t anticipate leaving San Francisco in the morose state I am in right now. It may sound strange but I am really grateful to my past self for planning this trip despite having a dozen reasons not to.
It is funny how life’s priorities change.
Some of you dropped me messages after my last post. That you could relate, that you didn’t know you were feeling a similar disconnect until I had written about it. I am deeply grateful, because I too, find strength in your words.
Here’s how I look at it. Assuming I am relatively able till I am 70 (very conservative estimate – I don’t actually want to live till that long), I have approximately 13,000 days left. That doesn’t feel very long. It is not dying I am concerned about, but how many opportunities I have left to create all the things I want to create, and how much longer can I be in awe of the world’s blinding myriad of interconnecting stories.
When I think of it that way, the decimal points in my bank account cease to matter, the physical assets I am willing to trade off for lived experiences, the definition of a career becomes pale in comparison.
In the end, what are we all living for?
For now, I live to love – love in the most universal sense, the love that makes me want to truly experience what this world and her people has to offer, and explore what I can give in return, instead of being satisfied with society’s narrow definitions of what it means to be alive.