“Live as if there is no tomorrow!”
This is one popularly quoted line and most of us would actually swear that we follow this dictum…
But with retrospection, if we decide to be really honest with ourselves if not to anyone else, we shall realize that very few of us actually abide by this beautiful law of life.
What exactly do we mean by living in the moment?
Waking up each day thinking of what is going to be our course of action (for those who lead a stereotypically organized follow-the-rules kind of life) or planning to hang out with friends or go partying (for those chilled-out people out there) or sulking in some corner because you are bored with the direction in which your life is headed (for those I-am-so-bored souls) or hyperventilating about that big day or something you have waited for all along (for those I-am-always-hyper types) or enjoying whatever you do (a rare species but yeah, they do exist!)…
Photo by: Aditya Sinha, M.Tech Software Engg, MIT,Manipal
Well, we may swear by the gods that we live life in the present, enjoying the moment as if there was no tomorrow! Sometimes, we say “If I were lucky enough to get so-and-so, I swear I shall be so happy that I could die without any regrets or unfulfilled desires” but the moment we get that, we find ourselves craving for something bigger! This is my take on the dictum of life…
True that sometimes I do feel like I have been lucky enough to get everything I ever needed or wished for…
True that when I am with friends, chilling out and dancing like crazy, or just basking in the glory of the sun at the beach, letting the waves wash over my feet and break at the shores with a magnificence never seen before; or sipping a cup of hot cocoa with my best friend, catching up on each others’ life; or just enjoying the beauty of nature; I feel like I am living in the moment as if there was no tomorrow!
But fast forward this and let’s do a reality check… The moment I come out of this state of euphoria, I go back to planning for tomorrow… Be it career plans or an outing with friends or just reorganizing my room or clearing up my closet or even watching a movie for that matter… So do I call it living as if there was no tomorrow! Maybe yes, maybe no! I am still not sure about that!
Sometimes, I go to the hospital and see terminally ill patients; say patients diagnosed with cancer. That gets me thinking about what it means to live as if there was no tomorrow. I have known people, who have battled this demon of a disease with a strong heart and a smiling face, even going as far as trying to lead a normal life to the best possible extent, emotionally supporting their families; and I am pretty sure, somewhere behind that smile, they hide their pain that every passing moment brings with it.
The realization that seconds are ticking by, little by little time is being stolen away from their lives by destiny… they hide the pain that so many unfulfilled desires and shattered dreams and regrets bring with them… they hide the pain the thought of separation from their loved ones brings…
Some people are strong enough to camouflage all these feelings with a curtain of happiness that each moment of their remaining time on earth is like a blessing disguise… time that they have been blessed with so that they can at least accomplish a fraction of those many dreams they had weaved about the future!
Some people take it in their hands to make the remaining time of their lives as memorable as possible; trying to value the simple things in life that they might have earlier looked at with scornful eyes, cherishing those simple moments that make life so worth living, finding joys in the smallest of gestures which might have gone unnoticed by them earlier… It’s never too late to learn… This is the brightest example, according to me, of living in the moment!
It’s difficult to appreciate the gifts life has to offer unless one steps in the shoes of the less fortunate! But isn’t it wiser to observe and learn so that we don’t always commit the same mistakes and learn from our own mistakes!
As I write this, I shall admit that this is one thing even I find difficult to practice but one that I want to practice! Yes, this is what I believe is living life as if there’s no tomorrow! There is no harm in weaving dreams of a rosy future, having your plans for the future chalked out for the future!
Rather, life would be so boring if we didn’t have anything to look forward to. But one should remember that getting blinded by the temptations that the world has to offer is definitely going to quash that inner voice in us that tells us that life is much more than running as a contender in this race for power!
As I write this, I hope I shall look forward to tomorrow for better reasons and; though I shall not say that if I died today, I shall die without regrets, I can rest assured that I have managed to appreciate the little gifts that life gives us as blessings in disguise!!!
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