Good evening ladies and gentleman
Apparently, the average lifespan at the moment is around 85 years. If you’re lucky, you might make 90. Those few and far between make triple digits, surprising even themselves at their own longevity. Look at it slightly differently- 10 years is 3,652 days. Imagine you are going to run that cycle 9 times. That loop round the lake, the run round the track. Blink and 365 days are gone- but 3652 won’t happen for a while- so sure we all are that there is always going to be time. We seem to have fallen into this time trap, this idea that we work 40 hours a week to afford the 2 days a week we actually enjoy, the modern idea to shove as much pleasure through the 2 days, making it seem like it will last forever- while you endlessly endure the other 5.
It’s an interesting idea…endurance. It take some endurance to get through a bad day, one of those days when it feels like the whole world is against you. Maybe your car broke down on the way to work, maybe your boss pulled you into the office for being late. Maybe your sandwich spilt down your shirt when you bit into it at lunch and just when you realise all the overtime you’re going to have to do to pay for the repair to the car you could just breakdown and cry.
I’ve brushed on it briefly in the past, more on the idea of life seemably being endless in the problems we are told we should be facing, or feel like we cannot avoid. What of the need to endure, the feeling that you’re constantly up against it, swimming against the tide and going to be just as tired as when you woke up, barely able to get through the day with your head above water.
I have an odd tendency to stare at myself in the mirror sometimes, particularly on those sort of days. Perhaps near deflated defeat at the prospect of another night of poor sleep in this stifling heat, looking at the bags under my eyes or the redness of another day gotten through. I don’t know how I’ve done it some days, endured when all I’ve wanted to do was climb to the top of a very tall hill and sit quietly, looking at the streets, roads and cars below as i lie distant from what life has become.
Even with this nature, I am very much aware of how lucky I am and that I am privileged to even be able to sat at my window typing this to you now. Life is brilliantly simple, yet I think we have fallen into a misconception that we must endure life to get where we want to be.
The world and the societies within it, will continue whether you are a part of it or not. I remember having this thought often as a child- going away on a family holiday and imagining the world as i know it had stopped, left on pause while i got on the plane and disappeared into new and unfamiliar places for 10 days. To find as reality hit in the taxi on the way back home- nothing had changed and the world had been just fine without me.
The world and the people in it have no power over you- or you it. The world and all that fills it is ultimately out of yours and my control. What i say may mean nothing to you, yet someone else you could hang off their every word. The thing about life and how we make the most of it is ultimately to live with this reminder- that life is a single player game. That’s it, society is a great concierto and you, just you have been gifted the opportunity to add a verse to this great piece of music, to elevate it to that next state of grandeur, of unrefutable beauty.
So, how does one contribute a verse- and live to tell the tale? This endless endurance, this supposed ideal in which you or I are surviving life, rather than living every day of those 32,868 that have been given to you? The chances of simply being born and becoming who you’ve become and achieving all you have, no matter how big or small are positively astronomical- you are a uniquely crafted set of impossibilities, proven possible.
The truth is- I have no idea. I’ve spent a lot of time asking myself that same question and will probably continue to do so…
Where to start then?
Look in the mirror. Literally or figuratively- even only for a minute every day. We spend so much of our day looking into screens, filtering pictures on Instagram and taking selfies, questioning why we look the way we look, talk the way we talk, wishing we had been born with this or that- or “how did that happen?” or “what the hell am i going to do?”
Forget the details for a second. Whatever you’re told you should look like, the way your hair “should” be, the fragrance you “should” be wearing. All very important when it comes to the power we give the world, that we give society but much less relevant when it comes to you. People talk of their friends and of their family that they would not be able to live without them. I am also a part of that and understand the ideal of this entirely- but there’s nobody in your life more important than you. Life is a single player game. We talk about surviving the day and this path so many of us find ourselves on, of endless endurance to make it through to the next period, the next week, the next month.
Before you know it you’ve endured 90 years and you’re lying on your deathbed wandering where it all went wrong. Learn about yourself, get to know yourself- become your friend. Listen to yourself when you are in pain, rest when you have to. The signs are all there, you just have to listen. Society is a difficult place to live in- life is very easy thing to live when you know whose staring back at you in the reflection.
Life is a single player game. Imagine a huge container at the other end of the room. You have any number of balls. Friends, family, co-workers, jobs, hobbies, trips and memories that will leave their mark on your forever. The container that makes up who you are is filled only by you.
Society doesn’t make you happy- you do.
Because life is a Single Player Game.
Yours, with love as always.
D.R x
