news A lot of the last things you did are slipping away

[zhongy 34]

I find that a lot of things you are doing, maybe for the last time, are slipping away before we know it. Maybe they're so mundane that we think there's a "next time," but there it is. I think we should treat every sentence as our last. I think we should treat everything we do as the last time, and don't let ourselves leave regrets!

Edited Tuesday at 02:30 PM by zhongy

[Ishmael 53]

I remember adults telling young child me how quickly time would pass, and that I'd be them before I knew it. Intellectually I always understood, but the true understanding--the visceral feeling of your mortality--only really landed after 50. 

It can be challenging to stay positive and forward-looking. My old therapist used the image of sailing your life's little boat. Sailing requires sitting up front, looking ahead, anticipating what's coming next. Much better than rowing, where you only see what's behind you. 

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

[Ice Princess Silky <3 19,876]

12 hours ago, zhongy said:

I find that a lot of things you are doing, maybe for the last time, are slipping away before we know it. Maybe they're so mundane that we think there's a "next time," but there it is. I think we should treat every sentence as our last. I think we should treat everything we do as the last time, and don't let ourselves leave regrets!

I used to have an old motto on my profile, "find magic in the mundane." It hints to a similar thing. Something might seem boring or commonplace... but it is actually sacred and meaningful. Even this glass of water sitting by me at my desk. Seemingly simple and meaningless. Yet a source of nourishment and a moment in time that will never be again even if tomorrow I shall have a similar moment. 

Every moment is sacred because no moment shall ever be again.

TW: a little bit darker in spoiler:
Today, I was rushing in the morning and I forgot to eat breakfast. No big deal. Water is enough to sustain me as I go throughout my day until lunch time. But as traffic started to jam and things got in the way from an othewise smooth drive, I was becoming increasingly demoralized and beginning to regret not having had any breakfast at all to build a better tolerance. After being forced to take a detour that only made my trip even longer and last for hours, I found my mood had definitely plummeted from the otherwise uplifting sensations from earlier.

Usually there is construction work so traffic happens quite often. 

When I made it to my destination, I got the news of what had happened. 

Spoiler

Apparently there was a tragic accident and someone lost their life. 

It made my feeling annoyed over traffic seem so petty and meaningless. To many people, someone's bad day can look like a blessing by comparison. It made me both sad but also grateful that we are able to savour the little things in life even if it seems like nothing. 

I also feel like awareness has quite a bit of weight to it, as well. I suppose that can be both grounding and enlightening when balanced. 

I really liked your post. Thank you for the thoughtful thread. 

[Night Sky 1,158]

Endings are painful, but they are not everything. 

You will reach a point where you can see how they cannot be untangled either from beginnings, nor even from this present moment. 

Everything has always been, always is, and always will be exactly what is in front of you right now.

All of it, the past, the present and the possible hope of a future, it is all in you, in this moment. 

While you yet live, live. 

Just breathe every breath as though your life depends upon it, which of course it does. 

I have had to take the fear of death by the hand and comfort it, both within myself and within people I care about more than myself. 

Their fear makes me sad, I have felt their terror. 

I try to be kind. 

But what if, an eternity from now, immortal, self replicating or somehow having cheated the reaper, you reach the point where you can no longer store more memories, new synaptic pathways forced to destroy older patterns, the memories that matter slowly fading. 

Not being able to remember, but remembering that once you did remember, having to trust notes and photographs that are utterly alien to you.

Meanwhile, every day has its attendant joys and futilities. 

Nothing will have changed, life will go on as long as it can, except that you will have lost everything that mattered to you.

How I long, one day, to transcend this form for another, if the laws of nature are kind. 

Being stuck forever in this form would become an agony long before the last black holes evaporate.  

There is some faint hope, even in the final, unavoidable leaps of faith that we call endings.

Edited Wednesday at 04:34 AM by Night Sky

[liujiadong 1,588]

We really should cherish every moment we are alive, whether it's big events or small things like brushing our teeth. We should pay attention to them, even if your life is still long. Do your best in every moment, don't leave regrets, and live a meaningful life.

 

In SpongeBob SquarePants, the line I remember most is what Larry the Lobster said: **"Live each day like it's your last."**Only in this way can we push our limits and achieve the "extreme challenge" of each day.

 

Cherish the present and make the most of every day.

 

 

[Clawdeen 25,234]

Yeah so I don't disagree but for me personally dwelling on this sort of stuff isn't productive. The time I've spent sitting here thinking about how I'm getting older, people who have passed, living life in the moment, etc is time I'm taking away from ACTUALLY living my life. A lot of people will repeat the same thing of living life for every moment/to the fullest/etc but don't actually do it. They'll talk about it but don't do it. I'm more of an actions over words person, especially when words can easily be made to look nice with ai these days. 

I can write out this full thoughtful post on living life with no regrets, etc. Spend 15-20 minutes on it. However the time I spent writing that I could have been actually doing that. I can set my laptop down, go exercise, read a book, play Stardew Valley and do things I want to do. I say that as someone who has made the choice to lay around thinking about my eventual demise vs actually doing anything productive. The time I spent thinking about how old I am now and how everything hurts for no reason I could have finished a book. Vice versa the time I spent talking about living my life to the fullest I could have finished a book. 

It's not that I don't like in depth conversations but when it comes to this. My thoughts are the time I spent talking about living my life to the fullest I could have been doing it. I've also noticed a lot of people I've ran into over the years who have made comments about living your life to the fullest, no regrets, etc aren't doing it themselves. 

[ZiggWheelsManning 15,188]

I feel this way because of a gaming joystick set that is meant for the Star Wars:  Squadrons game and the Blu-ray player that played The Matrix movie.  Both electronic items are sitting in their respective places, untouched, inactive and gathering dust.  Worrying the fateful day that neither electronic will be operational and ready to interact with the video games and movies they were meant for.  How much time can I hope before the next summer or September shows up that I can gracefully pickup that joystick set and reactivate Star Wars:  Squadrons for a new need of thrilling and challenging adventures.  

 

The irony of today that I got work to prepare for and travel to that income survivability building.  Endless possibilities of happy and sad can happen at any minute within my 4-hour shift even the 20 minutes before the shift and 2 minutes after the shift.  Like any other day, the 3 meals are needed to give us nutrition and readiness.  We gotta take the threshold of any challenge that awaits everyday, be remindful of who we are.  Stick to the positives much as need be and will learn and experience those challenges before the satisfaction.  

 

Spoiler

Sad to hear that someone died in a traffic accident.  

[Ishmael 53]

This is such a great thread.

My old therapist once blew up at me for my neurotic approach to life. So many things I wanted to be and do, and somehow I was in my early 40s, none of those things accomplished, divorced, all my energy going to a job. How did I make all these stupid mistakes? What were they for? What am I doing?

"What's anything for? Why do anything?" She wasn't quite yelling, which she knew that's what I needed to hear her. "People like you, creative artist types, are always thinking, seeing farther, penetrating deeper. But if you make the quest for meaning neurotic, it's exhausting and empty. I saw a beautiful rose on my walk today, leaning out over the sidewalk, yellow and perfect. What's it for? It was there for me to see it, smell it, appreciate it, just be with it. Maybe it'll be there tomorrow, but my being with it tomorrow won't be the same. We'll have this conversation again, but it won't be the same as the one we're having right now. Every moment is unique and never to be repeated. All we can do is follow Ram Dass and be here now." 

I remember leaving her session: a dark fall night, the air crisp, the city alive. I'd heard and read her message many times before, but that evening the world was both still and more open, like a wild animal that decided I could touch it. I walked the busy blocks just looking around, floating a few inches above the ground in the way you do, after revelation. That old headshrinker knew what she was doing. 

It's so easy to go through life on automatic, even when deliberately trying to be conscious and intentional. I raked leaves yesterday, but didn't truly sit with it and savor the shapes, colors, sounds as I promised myself I would when I rushed the same way last year. When I first moved to this part of the country, everything entranced me. Brilliant fall leaves, the rain, the blue skies after, everything green. I still marvel at it, but it's easy to take it for granted. Look at it without seeing. Technicolor leaves are everywhere now, but they'll be gone soon, knocked down by the rain that'll come to stay until late spring, probably. I send daily photos of the changing leaves to my Boston friend now living in LA. He really sees them, which helps me do the same.

My subconscious decides I need to think about two dead friends at random intervals. Both had moderate-to-serious mental illness that prompted self-defensive distance on my part, but we maintained a patchy stream of letters and then emails, going back to high school. I'm coming close to accomplishing a big important thing (to me, anyway), and I realize I won't be able to share it with them. This doesn't make me sad, exactly. I'm not sure how to describe it aside from the Buddhist noble pause: a still moment when you can decide what to feel and think--to respond instead of react. Maybe it's a noble bafflement, or something like when you're in your teens looking up at the stars and have your first adult thoughts about time and vastness, and the implications. No fear, just feeling how big it all is. My friends were alive, and now they're not, but memory confuses and conflates these states. I know the phone will never ring from them, but that inner child that doesn't understand time still waits for their call.

It's easy to rush, feel the eye of the clock, the weight of the world. It's so easy to be stuck, numb, regretful, feeling like a failure. We all have to give unto Caesar, and his worldview and priorities slowly consume our own. And he wants more all the time. But I go out and look at the stars when it's clear, and I'm much better at being here now and looking at them, instead of thinking back to other times, other places, but the stars the same. They're changing, just as we are, but we're only conscious of what's happening on our end, and inside us. 

Thanks everyone for sharing, and sorry for my rambling.

 

 

[Avery 1,273]

This is a very interesting question. I like to think of it as “One day”. The phase of that sounds more hopeful for me. It’s setting down a map and point at the “X” mark. This will be the destination where I want to reach to. When the time feels right, there will be doubts… but at the end, I take the leap of faith. I may stumbled as I fall, trying to fly. When I reach to the ground, there’ll be time when it easier to lay down. But fate will often comes and tell me to get up and try again.

My life map has more than one “X”. Some already got a check mark over it. Meaning I already reached to it.., sometime these destinations lead me to treasure. Sometimes it’s doesn’t. That’s the mystery part of the journey. But I still got more “X” to go to, and I think that’s the exciting part.

People tends to expect the start to finish line. A clear straight line. Get things done. It’s an immortal complex that we often find ourselves thinking about. It’s worries us.. give us anxiety to feel we’re not doing anything what we mentally told ourselves we will do it. That’s okay. That’s just saying it’s not the right time. You do what feels right by you.

Edited Wednesday at 06:42 PM by Avery

[Dawnshine Wonder 3,967]

I wish life was endlessly pleasurable and safe, but that's not how it is, so we have got to make do with the here and now, if the world ends tomorrow, it is pointless worrying about a situation we cannot change. Live for the moment, and be gentle and kind to people around us, is all we can do. We only get one chance at this, because there will be an eternity without us.

[SharpWit 2,975]

I live in Washington State where our Pacific Science Center recently closed it's 40 year old Dinosaur exhibit. It contained 10 animatronics, some interactive fossil displays and dioramas, and many informative plaques. Most of the animatronics had fallen into some state of disrepair, with broken motors, worn out parts, flaking rubber and foam that had to be painted over, but even as still statues they were magnificent. With age their depiction became less accurate, and as much fun as the pop up animatronics that brief shopping mall parking lots and zoos, these had been a permanent display with a far greater amount of detail. One could even argue that their visage preserved a different way of thinking, a secondary window into the past that highlighted how far we've come in understanding these ancient beasts.

My girlfriend and I went for one final visit during the final days. I reveled in the nostalgia, how I once fit comfortably within the footprint of a tyrannosaurus, and marveled at how even now these displays towered over me. I took hundreds of pictures, brushed my hands over every surface, took in the sights and sounds, every sense that had become so familiar during my childhood. I shared these memories, feelings, and ecstaticism. I could've stayed there for hours, overnight if they let me, but eventually it was time to leave. I held hands with the Allosaur, not wanting to let go. I smiled, thankful for the experience, and left in tears.

Now lil ol me did a dum dum and sent my phone through a wash cycle without having had my photos synced, so there's a chance they're gone forever. I'm working on getting them recovered, but there's no certainty. I will forever have my cherished memories, and the fortitude to remake them as best I can, for my enjoyment and for those to come.

Recently we also had the announcement that our local Reptile Zoo would be closing it's doors, due to difficulties in the extensive care the animals require and immense time that takes, in the face of low attendance. This establishment is one of a kind for our area, as it's been grandfathered in from a time when the trade of dangerous animals was still permitted. We went there as well, thinking it'd be our last time. Almost symbolically, a giant tortoise had spent the entire day digging a nest for eggs that would never hatch, as there was no means to care for them. Overburdened as they were, where could they find someone to rear a dozen exotic animals with special needs? It's important to keep places like this around, especially when there's really nothing else like them. When they're gone, they're gone. Luckily, the community responded, and they made enough in the span of two months to continue operations for at least another year. They are closing this next month for maintenance and cleaning, but we can be thankful that it will stay around for now, so long as we continue to visit.