Nothing personal, Mr Twain! #FridayReflections

Mark Twain once said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why."

My views on this, however, are slightly differ. Allow me to explain.

To begin with, how can one ever be sure of what one is born to do or be? Man is a constantly evolving animal. As we evolve, our choices evolve too. So do our decisions, our outlook. Our needs and desires. Our goals and aspirations. 

How then is it possible to know for sure that you want to do that one thing or be that one  for the rest of your life?

For me, I have never wanted to know. I want to keep trying to find out. I want to spend every single moment of my life in oblivion of that one thing that is capable of binding me down from discovering my full potential. 

If I am sure of what I'm meant to be doing, I'd probably lose the driving force that propels me to be a better version of myself each day, the force that pushes me to explore, introspect, understand myself, the urge to change the things I can and accept the things I cannot...the want to be the best version of myself only the day I die.

If we realize why we am put on this earth while we are still young and able, the monotony would make us lethargic. It would only push us into concentrating all our energy towards that one thing every day for the rest of my life, because we'd believe that's what we are meant to do. 

We'd never bother to find out if there was something else we excelled at, or perhaps something that we didn't excel at but would love to try anyway. No! Every attempt at anything (other than the discovered goal) would seem like a waste of time. 

So, I say, why not live each moment as if it were all we were meant to live? Why not treat every job we do like it was the only thing we were meant to be doing, like it was what we were born to do?

Just like no dream is ever too big, no job is ever too small. The problem, however, is that we are too busy trying to figure out our dream, that we fail to put in our best in what we're doing and miss the bus of small pleasures.

It's a vicious cycle really, this pursuit of happiness. We keep running around in circles, never really satisfied with the chase...

However, the day we are completely satisfied with ourselves, we will cease to improve. And that will the end of the story, of us. As long as we don't know what exactly we are capable of, the world is full of possibilities. We can be anyone we want. We can covet anything we like. We can set higher targets every day, reach for the stars and strive towards them. We can celebrate our successes and learn from our mistakes, all the while without the pressure of our discovered life-mission.

The moment we'd learn what we are meant to be, everything freezes. Fears set in. Deadlines loom. Now that we'd know what we're supposed to do, we'd want to get there fast. The greed of the winning flag would push us to run on that one track road, without stopping to look elsewhere. We wouldn't stop to smell the flowers. We wouldn't have the patience to enjoy the journey. Because we'd know where it's supposed to end. We'd know the destination, and we'd be in a hurry to get there.

All the above said and realized, I wouldn't consider it important to know what I am born for. 

Because I believe there is no just one reason. 

However, it is just one life, and I want to squeeze every last drop of enthusiasm, of energy, of desire, of effort, and last but not the least, of satisfaction from it. 

So for all it's worth, there is no one day that holds special importance for me. Neither the day I was born (Heck! I didn't choose it, but now that I'm here, I might as well make the most of it), nor the day I discover why I war born, nor the innumerable times I feel re-born, nor the day I will die.  

I'd simply say every day is equally important. Because when you don't know where you're going, you look forward to every step of the way...

Linking this post to #FridayReflections by Shalini and Corinne here.