We are all temporary here. So why take life so seriously?

By Chaiti Narula

You wake up every morning, go about your routine and follow it all throughout your life. You may have screwed up so many inter-personal relationships as they didn’t ‘fit in your scheme of things.’ Being with a person is almost a strict no-no due to the strings that get attached. You worry, you hurry, have lots of unwanted curry! You stress at work if your goals aren’t achieved a for the day, your constantly meeting deadlines, and finding ways to lead the race….I SAY STOP!!! Don’t take life this seriously. Aren’t we all temporary here? People come on earth…people go. Who remembers if you earned 5 bucks extra or sacrificed the one you love for a great career. Really… in the long run no one wakes up in the morning thinking of your life. Each is to his own. We may last another 60 days, weeks or years…who knows? What really matters is balance. Are we living life and fully experience the joy of existentialism? And this joy really lies in finer things and not huge achievements. While its great to be ambitious its greater to achieve that ‘balance.’ And by balance I mean having a career, a family and good health to allow you to live. It’s no fun driving the latest Jaguar with a chronic arthritis. It’s no fun living in the dream house off Park Avenue or Malabar Hill if you can’t live in it with the one you love or your family. There’s no fun having a huge family if you don’t have a career or a job that pays for their well-being and its no fun dying single and looking back on your death bed and saying ‘if only.’ I would kill to go back to being a baby when I had my first sibling. Life was all about playing with that little brother that came into my life. I tucked away all my dolls and other superfluous toys and really enjoyed watching that new living doll grow! The first time he spoke, he walked, had his first morsel. Joy did lie in little things like that and we couldn’t care less if we missed the derby or the champagne vernissage till we got to go ride on our favorite horse …or in my little brothers case..look at me ride and clap hands after I got done! The joy lies in doing. Doing what we enjoy the most. The joy lies in loving. Hence loving what we do! We are all going to strive and work hard and achieve and make pots and pots of money. And then there will be people who live a much more modest life than the ambitious ones. Do they both know they have the same destiny? That one void of death? Hence it’s always about the journey that leads into the common destiny off all mankind…of demise. And its the way you travel this journey that matters at the end of the day. And shit happens! It happens to all of us. And it’s really for the best when it happens only if you embrace it positively. And you will only do that if you don’t take life that seriously! The best lessons in life come the hard way! I wouldn’t have respected life this much if I wasn’t lying unconscious in a hospital at the age of 21. I wouldn’t have achieved any wisdom in interpersonal relationships if my only serious relationship would have not gone for a royal toss! Instead of crying and whining and regretting … lets be opportunistic and learn. We are a sum of all our experiences afterall. I say the key word is ENJOY. Enjoy the hard work in the profession of your choice, enjoy studying as its great to earn knowledge, enjoy the arts, enjoy subjects that make up the world, enjoy a sport, enjoy your family life, fall in love, enjoy the fights you have with people you love – cause you only fight when you care! It’s great to build intelligence and greater to develop an intellect. Goof up a few dates, job interviews, maybe a marriage too! But look at it smile and say life goes on and we are here to live and we will live well! And let it not go on for the sake of going on! Let it go on because it’s worth living. Let living be your journey. Love to live and love to exist…love the fine things in life but stop sweating the small stuff…cause we are all temporary here. So why take life this seriously?!