One day we’re born into consciousness, and one day we’re transitioned out into a state of infinite non-existence. Lights out, forever and ever.
It’s a crazy thing just to be here… to be alive and aware of our own existence on this little blue and decaying dot we call home sweet home.
We’re all the product of chance. A 1 in 400 billion chance it’s estimated (that is, each of us coming into existence).
It’s something so incredibly rare—yet something so foolishly taken for granted. For a once in a lifetime ‘never to happen again’ occurrence, you would think we would all make more use of our precious time. But we don’t. We’re careless, and we will end up regretting it.
For one reason or another I’ve become hyper-aware of the finite nature of life lately, and it’s made me ponder a little (as we all do). A little mind exercise I’ve been doing is asking myself the following question:
“How will I feel the day before I die?”.
We come into the world in a neutral manner—that is the world to us is neither good nor bad (yet). But on our last day of being alive, we will certainly be feeling either good or bad.
The beauty—or lack thereof—is that we will never know when our last day will come, but we can be sure that it will, as unfortunate as that is.
The part that I find crazy about this question is that it forces you to ask yourself how you’re feeling right at this very moment, because for all you know, your blink of existence could be all over tomorrow.
We all spend too much time trying to impress our list of friends on Facebook. Names, most of whom we barely know. We all have these flawless personas online that are not a true reflection of ourselves. All of the good stuff is cherry picked then broadcasted as a means of maintaining a false and perfect version of ourselves, with all the bad hidden away in the depths, only to be uncovered in the “real world”.
We spend too much time worrying about stuff that literally has no meaning other than the meaning we give it. Kim K’s latest photoshoot. Someone not having the same opinion as our own. Slow traffic. Slow internet. Not enough money. Not enough fucking likes to meet our quota of feeling significant.
I know all too many people who complain day in and day out about petty bullshit. First world problems. Being offended by what someone else said.
Let me ask you a question: do ANY of your problems end with you dying?
I didn’t think so.
Most of our problems are not problems. They are literally just the result of us being entitled princesses who are so desensitised to real issues that we feel the need to amplify insignificant problems. Is that what our species has come to? It’s pathetic.
Don’t forget that our western societies are a minority in the overall world population. It’s estimated that over 70% of the population is still considered to be “third world”, whereby people are living on less than $10 a day in poor living conditions. Much worse conditions than the homeless people on the streets of first would countries.
My generation (including myself) have not gone to war. We have never taken someone else’s life. We have never seen others literally gunned down until the colour goes out of their eyes. We have not lived in total panic on a daily basis with planes flying over our heads, hoping that we don’t get a bomb dropped on us.
We don’t have to hunt for our food, we have supermarkets. We don’t have to walk tens of miles for water, we have taps. We don’t die of common diseases, we have hospitals. 70% of the world barely has such luxuries that we take for granted.
So the next time you begin to waste your limited existence and complain about first world problems, do yourself a favour and either stop yourself and be grateful for what you have, or spare yourself the pain and jump in front of a fast moving vehicle, because the capacity of this planet is rapidly filling, and there’s no room for morons.
Find it in yourself to appreciate the opportunity you have—that you will never in an infinite amount of time have again—because life truly is a beautiful thing that we can all experience in a positive manner.
Make all of your days count. Make all of the moments in those days count. Don’t do shit that doesn’t make you feel exsessively-passionate. Don’t complain about insignificant first world problems.
Help others in worser situations than yourself, and make the best of your own situation. Learn to enjoy yourself every single day, so that when your final day does unexpectedly come, you’ve spent your whole life preparing.
Because remember, everybody dies, but not everybody lives.
We’re all here to live, so do just that.
