Life is not a rehearsal
So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.― Mitch Albom
Sometimes, when watching a movie or series, there comes a scene that is too intriguing, too shocking or too good to be true. This scene teases your brain and brings your expectations into question. It leaves you sad, angry, frustrated, pained or simply in denial. Just as you are caught up in that moment, you find that the scene was simply someone’s daydream or nightmare. It was just a rehearsed teaser, after which the movie and series continue.
For the sake of intrigue, one has the luxury of rewinding to re-watch the scene, be it once or several times. At the same time, one is able to pause and take in the details of a scene for a desired time span. The fast forward option is also intact if an individual wants to get a glimpse of what is ahead and see if it’s worth watching to the end. These are the luxuries of a rehearsed movie and series.
Now we, humans, have a tendency of having a laissez faire approach to the way we live our lives as we approach it as a rehearsal. We behave in ways that would make one think we have the luxury to rewind, pause and fast-forward. Our actions seem to reflect a carefree sense of living, rather than a conscious sense of living where one is explicitly aware of the fact that each day that passes is a day that will never return.
Carelessness
Humans can be careless. Sometimes such an approach to life is a serious hindrance to progress and development in general. At times, such an approach brings disastrous consequences to the person involved and, unfortunately, it flows to the people that surround the person.
For instance, ending up HIV-positive is something one cannot reverse. Not all people that end up positive find themselves in that situation because of carelessness but, mostly, this is how the virus spreads. The virus spreads easily when people become reckless and careless with their sexual lives. They go on and on changing partners and mixing partners without thinking of the consequences on themselves and the people around them.
It becomes really sad when little children and faithful partners are infected because of other people’s recklessness. What is really counterproductive is when families are broken and society suffers because someone chose to live life as a rehearsal.
Mistakes
It is typical of humans to assume they can make the same mistake someone else made and somehow manoeuvre the consequences. Everybody knows that if you steal money from a company, or the public, you eventually face the wrath of justice. If the justice system fails, at least karma always does its job. It’s amazing that individuals keep engaging in corruption and thievery and fail to learn from mistakes that led to other people’s downfalls. Life is not a rehearsal; how you live it remains your legacy. It cannot be erased like a recorded scene.
It is unfortunate that we, as humans, fail to learn from other people’s mistakes and, in so doing, we fail to make the world a better place.
Complacency
Often times, we forget to question ourselves; our values, our goals, our intentions. We choose to consider ourselves perfect. We consider ourselves larger than life itself and make no steps to consciously evaluate the actions we take and the decisions we make in our lives. Unfortunately, complacency does not have a positive vibe attached to it. Complacency is not an agent of progression. Complacency adds zero value to life.
Procrastination
It was written somewhere that “Don’t leave until tomorrow what you can do today”. I loved these words because they reflect what most of us are guilty of doing. We love to go for the pleasurable and easy things that we want to do and leave the important hard work that we need to focus on. It is easy to always go for the easy way out but, at the end of the day, we are only taking a step forward and five steps backwards. Can we really progress in this way?
If it were a movie scene, we could scratch and record another scene and the essence of the scene would not be lost. Unfortunately, life cannot be scratched and re-recorded. Wasted time remains wasted time. Life is not a rehearsal.
I rest my case.
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