It’s not the life we chose, but the life that chose us. To Bob, that could mean wondrous things. To Steve, that could be the most devastating thing ever. Sometimes we set the bar high and get shot down. Sometimes we set the bar low and clear the hurdle effortlessly – soaring to the moon on the third jump of a triple jump.
But Bob and Steve aren’t real. I am. Yes, I am more than ink on a tree or fingertips on a keyboard. I am a person. And I have a life. But did I choose it? Or did it choose me?
Choices are all we have. And choices happen all around us. Yet, I’m at the point in my life where I have forgotten when I stopped choosing and began living. It’s that moment in time when the days move past, blurring together in a streaming flame. Mondays feel more like Saturdays and Junes are less exciting than Marches. Happiness and sadnesses are synonymous with the business of the day. Joy with oneself are figments of imaginations. Things are going swell today, awfully tomorrow, and stupendously in a fortnight.
Still, the pain at night, as my neck cringes in distress because one pillow is not enough, and two pillows are stiffening, is compounded by the fact that I don't know whether my joy is due to my own choices and if my sadness is due to life's choices for me.
My mind wrestles between periods of robotic actions, as if a pawn programmed to move one space, or two, and periods of presidential domain, dictating the bend of my toe and the thoughts of my mind.
Yesterday, I jumped from my fire escape. I took life – my life – into my hands. Leaned out the window, knocked my crotch on the window sill, scratched my ankle on the window frame, tripped and knocked my head against the railing. That's when I started to think life was grabbing me by a leash.
Strength. Personal domain.
I grabbed the fire escape, pulled myself up, leaned over, and took the plunge. Goodbye world. Hello future in heaven where, even if life takes me by the arm, it will be happy.
Well that didn't happen. Hello concrete sidewalk. Please meet my knees. Hello building shrub. Please meet my face. Hello life. Thanks for choosing to make me jump from the first floor.
The above is an original piece of work by the author of this page. Any attempt to reproduce it will be deemed plagiarism.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
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We don't really control our decisions, or rather they are controlled by the people around us. We choose lives that our families approve of our our friends think are cool. We don't do things because of ourselves, but rather how we'll look to someone whose opinion (to you) matters. It is the desire for approval that gets in the way of our free will. The option to be in control is there....that's my take on that topic. The ending was quite funny, ( with the "ouch" factor). I didn't expect it, i assumed the POV was from the beyond :)
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