Before our Valentine's Dinner, my husband took me to Costplus World Market to kill some time. He bought me some dark chocolate-coated macadamias and I saw this book as we were checking out, "1000 Places to See Before You Die". Not that it sent my world careening wildly off its axis, but it did send random thoughts zinging and dinging in and out of my head (I could almost see them swoosh like bullets through the left hemisphere to the right and vice versa, hahaha).
What is life all about? Is it living to see how many places one can see in a lifetime? Is it about how much food we can taste? What are we in this world for? What's the main point, really? Is it to get married, have kids, send them to college, get old, get sick and then say goodbye? Is it striving hard to build the best looking house ever? Or is it about how many friends one can collect? Or how many cars we can squeeze in our garage? Is it how successful we can become in business or in the workforce? Or how much money we will have in the bank? Or is it how far we can travel or how far we can go? How about those people who seem at peace with having the same thing over and over in the course of their lives, living in the same place forever. Same ol' same ol'. Are they failures then? What if they are happy anyway?
I know that life is a gift from God. He gave us life so that we may experience different things and grow in His love. But philosophically, how do you confront these questions?
A million more bore through my head like a rainfall of laserbeams. Usually, it's hard for me to stop the giant snowball of thought from rolling once it gets started. I tend to stare in space and words would continue to boil inside me. But I had to stop them. This was Valentine's night and I had my husband and a great meal to focus on. And must I add, A LOVE TO CELEBRATE.
Then bingo! I realized it's really time to stop thinking. My life itself holds the cheat sheet of answers. I have a funny and caring husband standing in line with me by the cashier of Costplus. We just exchanged Valentine presents at home before going out to dinner. So...what am I here for? I am a wife above all else! And I am a daughter, I am a mom (to my stepdaughter), and hopefully a future mom to my own kids in the next years to come. I am a friend, I am a cousin, I am a sister. Right now, my main priority is to build this relationship, home and family with my loving husband in the most beautiful way we can. It is different from what used to be my main reason for living --going through college, passing exams, getting that first job. In the next coming years, things may be different once again. So forgive me for the cliche, but life really isn't the destination. It is the journey. We wake up each day to fulfill what is needed of us or what we want for ourselves each day. For one, it may be traveling the world and seeing a thousand places, visiting more art museums, or taking care of a flock of grandchildren. For me, I would like to have and raise more kids (go Clarisse, launch wonderful lives into this awesome world!), be there for my parents in their old age (allow me to cross that bridge when I get there), hold my own art exhibit, write my own book, travel with my husband to Hawaii, Paris, Ireland, Spain...and most of all, have a squeaky clean home full of warmth, love and laughter. It surprises me, but I even find fulfillment in each muffin I bake, each tile I scrub, and every basketful of laundry that I fold. Everything is tailor-made for each one.
So yes, as long as we're in pursuit of our own love and happiness and we wake up one day living it until the next goal we set, while making others and the world around us happy as well (or maybe even helping them out to achieve their own thing too!), life is "happening". It is all good. It is about how happy we can become, given our own personal standards...and most of all, how much love we can give.
Material things are okay, but remember, the heart is our only purse that we can take with us to heaven. What do u want to put into that purse?
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