Life moves in a continuum, the yesterday turns to tomorrow and we don’t even halt in the today to acknowledge the passage of time. This is it and this shall be until some apocalypse shakes us up and wakes us from the illusions we get lost in.
I live with and am partially responsible for six seniors above seventy with comorbidities, my parents, my husband’s parents, his uncle, and aunt. I keep seeing how life wears out gradually in the start and then all of a sudden too fast to even comprehend. The passage of time is etched in each wrinkled smile and the scars and clouds visible in the scans from their pathological reports. The passing time can be heard in the voice which has lost its supremacy and can be felt in the veins that cover the frail bodies when you attempt to give them a loving squeeze. The stick, the wheel chair, the support and aids needed to get by life are all signs of the passage of time. Mom’s unorganised shelf collecting dust, the bottles of redolent perfumes now replaced with the box of pills needed to carry out the basic functioning of the body. The smell of antiseptic with undertones of medicinal aromas hang in the air despite all efforts of regular cleaning regimes in the household are all time signalling that its ageing.
The endless visits to doctors, the medical plans, budgeting and care giving become a part of the daily routine. On one hand it seems we just started to enjoy life in the forties with a pint sized freedom from the status quo and on the other hand it is just a pipe dream to believe that we have control on our lives, completely.
Life orbits from one end to the other and the trajectory is set. The karma makes sure what we give is given back to us. Hence all of those who try to control the uncontrollable fate fall off and get mislaid in some delusion of sorts.
Does it mean we have no freewill? What about life being a tabula rasa? Asks my twenty year old niece. What about hopes and dreams? What about creating your own destiny?
I am whisked back in a moment when I was in college. I hear myself two decades back. I say, “Yes believe in them with all your might because that is also part of the plan, God’s plan.” I believe we all are given fate and freewill in equal measures and we must accept it knowing that we begin vulnerable and we end in vulnerability while in between choice to live or lose is presented. Change what you can and take chances while you can. Be grateful though, always.
It is a tabula rasa once we settle the paybacks of karma from lifetimes of living without awareness. Be mindful of each day and each state. Be awake. Know you are part of a collective whole and even though it may not seem that way but you are impacting and being impacted by the decisions and choices and by the ecology that surrounds you.
When you make your goals smart ( specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound ) I invite you to get smarter and add in ecological and responsible to it. Review them keeping in mind the end.
You will be surprised because when we do that it makes us modest, humble, authentic and fills our hearts with compassion and gratitude for what we have now.
The energy, the vibrance, the will and the resources that we usually take for granted become blessings and presents of the present. Time doesn’t halt for even a moment so make it count. Make it valuable.
Give and you will be given.
Take care of the collective whole and you will rise.
That is true freedom and one day you will also sing the song of true liberation until then just enjoy what you enjoy.
Time will call you when it has to.
Life Change Work 