Who holds the key to life?
We’ve all met people who seem to be sure about how their life is going to unfold. They seem to have their life planned out and take precise steps to get to where they want. They seem to know exactly what they are doing. They are confident, self-assured, healthy, and have all the material trappings. We look at them with envy, wondering why we can’t unravel the mystery of our imperfect lives however hard we try. How do they do it? Do they hold the key to a perfect life? Life seems to happen exactly the way they want it to. Until it doesn’t and we realize that their life is not perfect after all.
We then turn to authority figures because they must know the secret to life. The secret that makes life happen exactly the way we want t to. They serve as our role models because we believe they must know why they act they way they do. When they fail to live up to our expectations, we are disillusioned and disappointed. How could they act the way they did?! The world that put them on a pedestal pushes them down quickly. It does not accept or tolerate that all human beings – whoever they may be – are imperfect and do not hold the key to a perfect life. Everyone stumbles. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone dies. Unexpected things can happen to anyone at anytime.
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” – Oscar Wilde
Having a role model is good but trying to duplicate another life’s journey and project it as our own does not work. A better way would be to look for someone with qualities you would like to develop and emulate. Qualities that will help you in your own life trip because nothing in life is predetermined. You can take cues from history and role models, but the journey is your very own with infinite variables that you are beyond your control. A small change in any variable can lead you on another journey altogether. A unique journey that serves you best and is yours alone to walk.
Sometimes, what seems to be a problem can turn out to be a transformative step, a way leading you forward. Life opens up in ways you never imagined. Other times, great experiences end abruptly, people we love exit suddenly, and dealing with loss becomes a part of the journey. We know these things happen to humans but the only way we learn is by experiencing them in our unique ways. Those who are unaware or unable to cope with life’s ever-changing variables live a life of emotional mediocrity, complaining that life is unfair or blame external factors.
“It’s just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants. – Matt Damon
Life would be so much better if we accept what it gives us and run with it. Movement and change define life. Like a great ocean current, it leads us where we can experience the most inner growth instead of allowing the fear of the unknown to make us stagnate in places where we can learn nothing. Accepting life’s nature also changes one’s perspective on how to handle it. Instead of clinging, you let go because letting go is the only way to learn; because learning to let go letting go helps enhance other lives too; and because letting go is the only way you can grow in life.
Instead of shambling through life furtively and fearfully, learn to let go. Absorb the qualities you would like to emulate from others and walk your own path instead of living a poor imitation of another’s life. The more you let go, the more life gives you. And with time, you discover that the key to your best life is not anywhere outside or in imitating anyone else but in your own hands.
“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.” – Henry Miller
