This is It

A raw thought dump on the objective of my life with lots of grammatical and logical errors and is also probably just wrong:

EDIT: Another fitting title that Avi Romanoff came up for this essay is “Impact vs. Being”

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about what objective I wanted to achieve in my life. Time is finite, it makes sense to have an objective or else how can you hope to achieve it?

Since college, I have been thinking that it was about leaving an impact on the world. I want to “Change the world” as they say. I wanted to leave an impact on the world so that when I died, I did something in the world that was useful.

More recently, I’ve started to question, how much of that is due to ego, a quench for power, a fear of mortality, and other fears in general.

Note that this is not necessarily a comprehensive list. Also note that some of the below points overlap and are not completely mutually exclusive.

Ego

It’s not that I wanted the world to just be better, it’s that I wanted to be the one responsible for improving it.

Also, although I honestly think this is a smaller factor, as I hate to admit it, I think that there’s probably a credit component of it as well. I think there’s a small part of me that cares that people know that I was the responsible for this change.

Quench for Power

Power is fun. It’s exciting. Maybe that’s why I want to “change the world”. I have a friend who does NGO work related to maternity care in rural areas in a developing country and she told me that she probably for the same reasons that people join gangs: Power. I realize that this quench for power is a reason that I do the work that I do.

Fear of Mortality

There was a time when I realized that time is infinite and goes on forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever without you. How long infinite time is is completely inconceivable. So I wanted to leave my mark before I died, in the hopes that things would go on afterwards.

Fear of Lack of Meaning

Perhaps there was a fear of not having a worthwhile life as well. Which is why I wanted to make sure that I have an impact

Guilt

Perhaps it is due to feeling that I’ve been given so much and that I should give back.

However

a lot of the above sentiments come from a place of fear — fear of what other think, a fear of mortality, a fear of lack of control…

Connection

I was having a conversation with some friends recently. One shared that she was posed the question: “If you were the last person on Earth, what would be the first thing that you would scrabble to do?”. She said that she would want to create another sentient being so that she would not be so lonely.

Connection with other people is something that we as humans have a huge craving and need for. Connection really give us meaning. However, for me and I think many other people in my peer set, it’s so easy and culturally acceptable for us to put off connection for work because “We’re too busy”. However, even in situations in which we are spending with other people, there are many occasions where you do indeed talk with someone else, but we don’t actually connect. Perhaps you talk about this inane topic, like the weather, or have an intellectual discussion about religion. However, until someone is vulnerable and shares how they feel about something, really feel

Note: Saying that “I feel that this representation is not accurate” is not a feeling. Saying that “I feel angered and saddened and betrayed because this representation is not accurate is expressing a feeling”.

a connection isn’t really made.

An Alternative

So instead of living life to reach a specific objective and being afraid of whether I’ve reach it or not. I want to live life for life itself, not some other objective.

To live life for life itself. What do I mean? Well when you read these words. Or these words. Like, this word right now. You are experiencing life. This is it. What you are experiencing or what I’m experiencing right now as I write this is my life itself. What if that experience, was just enough. That is the point. Perhaps we don’t always have to get somewhere else.

As I understand play, play seems to be the activity for the sheer enjoyment of the activity itself, not necessarily some other end.

I think I want to live life of play in the present moment.

And when I do connect with people, I want to connect with them deeply by being vulnerable with each other.

And I want to be curious, always exploring — because there’s so much in a given moment, in a given moment, within a given person to appreciate, love, connect with — if I’m not curious, I’ll miss it all.

I want to live a life for life itself.

I’m living life for life itself.

I’m living life.

I’m living.

I’m.