Very often in life you are jolted back into reality by incidents and life episodes...
The Nepal earthquake 2 days ago seems to have done that for me.
I spent Saturday late afternoon getting a facial done, and was complaining to myself as I was having it done how much waste a single facial adds to the environment. All the tissue paper, the clean cotton swabs, the face masks, the laundry. A 70 long minute facial left me with more guilt of what my vanity cost the earth, instead of the glowing face I hoped to see.
As I walked out of the centre, I read news of the massive earthquake in Nepal. My first thoughts were with my sister in law, nephew and her family who were in Kathmandu and my brother in law who was summiting Everest. Calls around brought news that they were safe. However news articles, videos and photographs caught my gut to think of how useless our pursuits in life are in the face of events like these.
I have spent the last month shopping and settling into a new apartment. As of last week we were settled and done, so I was still reeling from it all each time I entered home, feeling happy, safe and thrilled at how pretty everything looked. What is it all worth though? Nothing really. Here I'm so tickled by my new abode while people in Nepal are standing outside their homes hearing their children cry as they use their bare hands to accomplish an impossible task of moving concrete boulders in hope to rescue what they know will be a life no more. Aaliya sleeps safely in her warm bed tucked in, while parents have lost their infants as young as her, because they were too small to make it out in time. How do I make sense of any of this in my head? and so I write.
I've spent a small fortune buying so much to 'decorate' a house, while that amount could have helped rebuild a few homes for those lying out in the cold rainy night. I know life hands out what you are destined for? But what I cannot understand is how so much can be taken away from you in a second that your entire existence seems so worthless. To have lived 20-30-40 years struggling everyday to make a living, build a house, raise a family, only to have it all destroyed between 11:41 and 11:42 am on a Saturday morning in 34 seconds.
34 SECONDS!!!!!!
This world is beautiful no doubt, life is precious no doubt, gratitude must be abundant no doubt - but to have to live through a tragedy like this and so many more that are happening almost routinely world over, just makes me wonder "What the hell is anything I've done in life worth?" Nothing in the face of something like this. Who cares how I did in school, what job I got in life, how much Im worth, assets I own, clothes I wear, whether or not my face glows? Who ****ing cares? Its all worth nothing in the end isn't it?
We come with nothing and go with nothing. Everything in between is spent chasing materialistic pleasures that seem so shallow right now. Again Happiness is all it boils down to doesn't it? Did I live happy? Did I die happy? Did I leave behind happy memories?
Nothing seems worth anything when faced with crisis like this.... perspective changes in a second.... but then over time we go back to our own ways again!
Hate how the human mind has the ability to forget, but if it didn't we'd continue to be miserable throughout, and happiness would be elusive.
But happiness is the only thing I seek and deem important at this point.
My hope for all of them is that they find a happy moment sometime soon, if life allows them to forget this pain. We're all so insignificant in the grand plan of this universe and its cycle. Yet we give ourselves so much importance... Ill tell u what- ITS WORTH NOTHING!
