62 Days of Mindfulness: I Stopped Postponing Happiness
How I went from the abstract concept of mindfulness to living it
Aren’t we all a bit afraid of dying? There is so much to do, so much to learn, and so much to become. Life on earth is rich and short. There will always be that one thing we want to do next.
I’m 22 years old now, so of course, there are many things on my ever-expanding bucket list I want to tick off. Approximately one-fourth of my expected lifetime has already elapsed — provided I don’t suffer any serious diseases or accidents. That thought scares me.
We grow up believing a fulfilled life is tied to conditions, such as “I have to do X, become Y, and be with person Z to be happy.” And it’s problematic because as soon as we meet one of these conditions, we will always ask ourselves what the next thing is we have to pursue. It’s a vicious cycle.
There is a quote that made me want to escape this vicious cycle. It’s from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and it transformed the way I think about life and death. In this scene, the protagonist, a shepherd boy, is stuck in the desert with a caravan. A war between tribes is raging nearby, and there is a high risk of getting caught in the crossfire — chances of survival are dim.
