One minute you’re contemplating if you can be bothered to get off your ass and go out for a drink Saturday night, the next, you’re on a flight home because of a family tragedy.
It’s always when life is so mundane that you find yourself stressing over shit. Like whether that Tinder guy will call. Worrying about work even on your days off. Allowing yourself to get distracted- TV, drinking, boys…
Then the universe throws something huge at you to make you realise what’s REALLY important.
Life.
I worry more about performing well sexually than I do about having my house bombed or my village flooded or my family murdered. For months now not even one of the 50,000 odd thoughts I have per day involve thinking about anyone other than myself. (HELP, I’m as narcissistic as Hannah from ‘Girls’!)
But we could drop at any moment. Loved ones could drop at any moment. I think about my wonderful nephews. My god-mother, my dad. My beautiful friends. I can’t imagine a world where they’re not around.
From now on I stop taking health for granted.
I stop taking the lives of those I love for granted.
I practice being less self-absorbed.
I’m reminded today to keep up contact with my family, reconnect with those I’ve Been Meaning to for so long, forgive the past and embrace the uncertainty of our messy, beautiful, scary, precious lives.
My heart goes out to the victims of 2017 terror attacks in London, Paris, Stockholm, St Petersburg, Baghdad, Somalia, Tikrit, Lahore among so many others, and the devastating chemical attack in Syria killing so many children.
*This is part of my 2017 project to recall the lessons life throws at me so that 23 won’t just be another year like the others, but one of contemplation and growth. What have you learnt so far this year? Do you overlook how precious life is? Can you feel yourself becoming a little too self-involved? Has a family tragedy or world catastrophe ever completely shaken up the way you view life?
