What's the point?
They tell you, "this is life, this is the way you must live it, talk like this, walk this way, become this, strive for that, eat only these, work for this, impress these people, exercise like this, feel these feelings, choose this, chew this, spit those."
Have you ever stopped to wonder: What’s the point? What's the point of anything?
We think of ourselves as free people with free will, living in a free world, without realizing that we’ve long and subconsciously sold our freedom for free. We say there are no guidelines for happy living and no directives to love, but instead we make other people’s lives our standard reference book. We design a five-year plan and invent a travel guide to a life that we think will make us happy, blinded to the agonizing reality that everything we have, or will have, is fleeting, fugitive, and tainted with uncertainty. We become overly obsessive and inclined to control every state and circumstance. We think if only we had a better job with a six-figure salary that would take us to our seventh heaven. If only we fell in love with that person and followed that 30-day weight loss plan, we would become happier and fitter human beings. All these things have created a myriad of unnecessary problems for us because we all have joined in the symphony of ignorance by underestimating our control over our own happiness.
Like a chrysalis trapped in its cocoon, we confine ourselves to the metrical scope of other people’s lives, losing our sense of self-governance. We blindly compare ourselves to others and our achievements to whatever the media tells us. Because we ignore the reality that we are all broken and often forget that behind every photo we see on a magazine cover is probably a splintered spirit, we imperceptibly ignore the fact that hardly anyone will place their real life on social media.
We believe we have a clear vision of what we want when, in fact, we really don’t. People say, "this is the route to happiness, if only we could acquire this, accomplish that, engaged to this and live in that," then we would be contentedly happy. Just like the salesman and author Zig Ziglar once said, “Money won’t make you happy… but everybody wants to find out for themselves.” We forget that everybody in life has a different mission with dissimilar paths to accomplishment. We claim that it is impossible to attain perfection, nevertheless we all strive for it. We run, endlessly, without the knowledge of where we are going. What we really want is beyond the scope of our apprehension, yet we chase it regardless.
Strive to gain this, seek to attain that: what’s the point?
We are all broken. We are all looking for something to give meaning to our lives, and we seek daily for the definition of our existence, but we neglect the fact that we have the option to be happy on our unending and unknown journey. The tale of our lives is not written on a tablet with an indelible ink; it's something we create.
We all are brought into this world to tread our path to happiness. And that is what we think we are doing until we realize that our actions sometimes contradict our mission. If being healthy is unappealing to you, then don’t be. If the world does not offer you happiness, you can create it for yourself. If you don’t want to be Captain Jack or Stanislav Petrov everyday, then quit.
There’s one thing that we forget: we are merely human beings, and we are absolutely not indebted to anything or obligated to anyone. There’s no tie to resolve or battle to settle; our existence is predicated on experiencing everything we can, and appreciating the splendor of creation. It’s true that our fingers are not equal, and some are more advantaged than others just by the virtue of birthright. This discrepancy does not make you any less of a human. You are here to observe and experience what life is really about. Really, what’s the point of chasing waterfalls? Happiness is defined by YOU. Do not regret the life you should have lived. There’s no everlasting happiness anywhere; it is created moment by moment. If there is any guideline you should follow or any chapter or verse you should adhere to, it should be the one you created for yourself. It’s not too late to start doing this. I mean, what’s the point? What’s the point of anything?
