Once, in a family gathering, and so suddenly, a relative asked me, “What are your plans?”
I decided to ignore her and to not answer her question. I thought I didn’t need to explain my life to her and even if I tried, she won’t get it anyway. It’s just that we are not in the same frequency level and so our perception of reality, and of life, is starkly different.
I knew she wanted to ask if I am going to get a job, and if I have plans to marry. Does the latter sound familiar to many singles out there? 🙂
I suspect she thinks of me as a lazy person, or one who is without direction, or plans and goals in life.
I do not do ‘work’. . . . I only do what I want/love to do, and what I want/love to do, I do not define as ‘work’. There are things I love to do that are compensated with money, and there are things I love to do that are not compensated with money, but I do them anyway just because I love to do them. I have decided to follow this personal life ethic because I want to, and also because I believe that the foundation of true success is doing what you love to do. It may be a slow process, but at least it is a sure and enjoyable process.
And because of this life choice, I consider myself to be living with ease and being in the flow. Some of my friends think of me as simply lucky while family members are intrigued no end.
Before my current choice of lifestyle, however, I had been, in fact, a hard worker, a perfectionist, and competitive in my past endeavors. I only stopped being the previous version of myself because of a dark and heavy shadow that kept tugging at me. This dark and heavy shadow would not leave me – not until I confronted it during the time of my Saturn Return (29 years old). Such darkness and heaviness first descended upon me after my father’s death – when I awakened to the cruelty and absurdity of what we call ‘life’ is.
My parents worked very hard. I blamed hard work to be the cause of their deaths. My father worked very hard in another town while my mother worked in the fields from dawn to dusk. They worked really hard – just like their parents and grandparents and great grandparents down the generation.
Now, I’m not complaining that my parents were hard workers. They lived their lives the best way they know how, given the circumstances of their time. And I am very grateful for everything that they imparted to me – even if it is the lesson to not follow their steps as it is not always the best way to live.
After my father’s death, I still vividly remember when I asked my mother – why?
“Ma, why was I born?”
“What do you mean?” She looked at me in a manner that as if my question did not deserve to be asked.
“I don’t know . . . but what am I born for? What are we people born for,” I asked, somberly.
“Do you not like to have been born?”
I almost screamed to her, the painful question I had been asking myself over, and over again:
“Look Ma, we were born, we grow up, we go to school, we argue and get insulted in school, we marry, we raise children, we work very hard, we get sick, we suffer, and then – we die – just like Father. What is it all for?”
I asked her with utmost sincerity, practically begging her to tell me the answer to the mystery of life.
Mother could not answer my question. She did not know the answer either.
So I went on with my life carrying that burden of a question on my shoulders – a heavy, sinister, shadowy entity following my every walk on Earth – reminding me if this is all there is to life.
I was sorry for screaming at my widowed mother, but I just really needed to know, ‘why?’
Allu Kuy: The Storyteller 