Is this all there is to life?
On this day a world stood still. In a moment of time all stopped. Not because of anything momentous. Because of choice. In this moment a person stopped and said.
Is this all there is to life?
This person asked a question. They did not get an answer immediately.
This non-answer frustrated the person asking the question. They asked again.
Is this all there is to life?
No answer. The person got more frustrated, huffed and puffed and walked around angry and resentful at life. Then the person asked one last time.
Is this all there is to life? No answer.
‘Well that’s it. I have had it. I am done. If no one else is going to tell me what the point of this life is then I am not going to go along with it. I surrender and give up. Whatever happens happens.’ - said the person with full humility.
So the person went about their day. The days merged into weeks then months then years. Pretty soon the person paid no attention to their question. They just paid no attention to it. Yet the person got on with life. Lived life. Every moment was a moment the person cherished and engaged in. No one else told this person how to live it or be in it. Total freedom of expression. Learning, experience, choice and consequence.
Then one day another one came to this person and said how frustrated they were that they could not figure out what the point of life was all about. This one kept asking but got no answers. This jogged the memory of the person just supposedly living.
The person pondered the question but did not ask. Instead they reflected and thought about why the one asked the question in the first place. That was when the realisation came. The act of asking someone or anything else what the point of life is defeats the whole purpose of having a life. It is not another life it is your life. Only your life. You choose how you live it. You choose how you share it. You are the one leading and living your own life. Simple.
The question then is not so much what is the point of life but how am I living my life true to me and expressing me in all I do. Then if I am driving this life as me how is the way I live my life connecting me to the world around me? How is my life impacting and affecting this world - no matter how seemingly small? The questions are neutral. No judgement no bad nor good.
Simply a matter of existence plus cause and effect. Yet once answered then the evaluation and reflection beings. This is when it comes together. For as this person stood back and contemplated past life choices so much revealed itself. The person saw self, truth, personal expression - an imprint of a life in time and place of this person’s existence. This person was in fact leaving a mark on the world just by being. Nothing else. This person did not have to initiate a great project nor command attention from someone superior. This person did not need recognition nor advancement. This person simply lived as oneself in a way being oneself. Simply. Just being who this person is in this life. The answer to the question is in the asking.
So now the person stood in front of this one and did not answer the question. Instead the person turned to the vast unknown of this world and asked a new question.
How may I live this life as well as I can?
The focus shifted to the impact and not so much on the ordered action. This person did not seek commandment nor guidance. This person sought collaboration and adaptation of learning and wisdom - knowing - one’s own knowing. That is all.
In the moment, every moment, the question became to simply know at that time how best to be in one’s life. The question served. There was no need for master nor follower. At the same time this person could join with others in a shared pursuit of good (a choice of word with all it’s connotations). For that is what comes up. That feeling within. Once found and identified it is nurtured and grows. It does not die. It may go hidden at times but not stay there.
The other insight of this moment was profound. This person could not do the work for the other. There was no place to tell the other what the person already knew. The one needed to go through a different journey. Both shared journeys. The individual learning and experience is part of answering the question.