Living
Via Logtar´s Blog :
“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.”
-Dale Carnegie
Logtar posted this quotation yesterday and it did strike a chord with me. I guess it is not only an American disease, but a Western, perhaps even just a human one. At least it is one disease I really suffer from myself.
As with many diseases I guess it is a matter of quantity - intelligent and longliving creatures do have to think about tomorrow (Aesop, e.g., already tells us about the need “to prepare for the days of necessity” and so does the bible and so did our parents and grandparents). “¡A vivir que son dos dias!” sounds good, but what if there is a third and fourth day after all?
Some kind of planning ahead for the future, some kinds of provisions are necessary - and only the very reckless try to make do without.
Planning ahead is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. And it will take away a little bit from living today. If I would not be thinking about tomorrow I might not go to work, have even more unhealthy habits than I have right now and other such things. Thinking about tomorrow keeps me from spending that nice day in the sun at a pool and makes me stay inside and do some work.
No, it is the dosis that makes the poison - and to find the right dosis needs intuition or luck or wisdom or someone to guide you or - rather - all of those things together.
And those with too little intuition, the unlucky, unwise, those without a reliable and trusted guide, in short those like me - we tend to do exactly what Mr. Carnegie (whom I do not know anything about btw.) describes: we grow older and older without really taking notice working and waiting and hoping for THE day, THE time, (THE princess) and might have to leave without ever reaching the horizon of our plans and provisions.
Una copita de café every now and then might be a good plan - as Logtar points out.
What about the really unlucky, like me, who live the other half of their lives in the PAST? Perhaps with me this even the more serious problem - only yesterday I pondered when I have started to live in the past so very much; when did my past became the major defining factor of my life? Living in the past is even more of a hindrance than dreaming of a far distant horizon, I can tell you. Keeps you bound and helpless very often and torn between this horizon and that, making today a neverland even beyond Mr. Carnegie´ s ideas.
dos+dias, living, life, horizon, now+here, vivir, today, tomorrow, yesterday, past, future, now,
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