Almost a week ago, an old family friend passed away. I am not at liberty to feel what the family do, or even pretend that I know what they are going through. Nevertheless, I feel that every time someone I know passes away, my soul takes a hit and cannot fully recover.
The scariest thing about death is its finality. In this era, this is magnified. The most simple example? Your Facebook account. There's your photo, and you're not there anymore. Your email accounts, your clothes, your papers, your life, left behind, for your loved ones to make sense of it while grieving. Maybe it's a silver lining, to be able to obsess over their matters while you grieve, complimenting the process until you find closure of some form.
Like most people, death makes me think about my own mortality. More so, it makes me think of the choices I have made and the decisions that are still pending. Particularly, battles I am fighting with myself and/or with others.
I think, as we grow older, we become more picky in what we chose. And I think there are two reasons for this:
1 - we think we have experienced enough to know what we want in certain situations, and
2 - we realise that life is too short to settle for anything less than what we want.
I'm just not sure where the balance lies. I'd like to think I'm fairly chilled and go with the flow (a work in process admittedly). Then again, there are some situations where I will just not back down.
1 - we think we have experienced enough to know what we want in certain situations, and
2 - we realise that life is too short to settle for anything less than what we want.
I'm just not sure where the balance lies. I'd like to think I'm fairly chilled and go with the flow (a work in process admittedly). Then again, there are some situations where I will just not back down.
Someone recently requested that I remove something from cyberspace on account that it was "unacceptable". Um, no, I thought, your request is unacceptable - why should I bend because our opinions are not "aligned"? And their response was that it was such a silly thing that I shouldn't make a big deal out of it. Hang on, I wasn't the one bringing it up..!
But then this person reminded me of how quickly a life can be taken from us. And it just made my brain hurt. I wanted to stand my ground. For the sake of standing my ground and in the hope that standing my ground would yield better results in the long run. If I backed down, then they "win" and a precedent would be set. Should I win, the precedent would benefit me!
We're always told to be the bigger man. But I really wonder how much impact the bigger man really made in his life. Furthermore, surely the bigger man is only the bigger man if the majority agree with his viewpoint and realise he is keeping peace. Otherwise he is just seen as the one who was wrong who is finally getting in line with what's right.
How do we decide what is important enough to stand for if the importance is subjective in the first place? Perhaps for 10 years we don't think something is worth fighting for and then suddenly decide otherwise. What then? Are we hypocrites? Do we waive the right to stand by our new opinions? Is it just human nature?
I'm not sure. I guess it's part of growing up knowing which battles to fight. I think it's important to allow yourself to be won over by other opinions so that you can enjoy life. And I think it's important to spend more energy on spending time with loved ones than trying to figure out who should back down. Especially since we don't know what is waiting for us around the corner.
Sx
We're always told to be the bigger man. But I really wonder how much impact the bigger man really made in his life. Furthermore, surely the bigger man is only the bigger man if the majority agree with his viewpoint and realise he is keeping peace. Otherwise he is just seen as the one who was wrong who is finally getting in line with what's right.
How do we decide what is important enough to stand for if the importance is subjective in the first place? Perhaps for 10 years we don't think something is worth fighting for and then suddenly decide otherwise. What then? Are we hypocrites? Do we waive the right to stand by our new opinions? Is it just human nature?
I'm not sure. I guess it's part of growing up knowing which battles to fight. I think it's important to allow yourself to be won over by other opinions so that you can enjoy life. And I think it's important to spend more energy on spending time with loved ones than trying to figure out who should back down. Especially since we don't know what is waiting for us around the corner.
Sx
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