Bucking the Current

By Theresa Koltes

I placed the mug of coffee by our visitor’s chair. At sixty-four he was one of the most successful architects in the country; many people know his name. He spent money like throwing confetti. He’d worked hard, and partied hard.

But there was a secret only we knew and that was that he was seeing one doctor after another. He’d had been in intensive care for a heart attack eventually leading to a heart transplant. But he still often over-drank and immersed himself in a busy work and recreational lifestyle to suppress the loneliness inside.

“I had it all planned out for me,” he'd told us many times. “The business was handed down to me from my father. I had little choice for my life. But people looked at me and I could tell they thought ‘this guy is really living!’ But they had no idea how lonely I felt. And now it seems I will never get to live my personal dreams.”

Later that day as I walked downtown, I thought about my friend’s words. I looked at the sea of faces rushing past me and wondered how many of these people were in the same boat; following other people’s choices, going through the motions.

Before we know it, we wake up twenty years later and think, “wait a minute-this is not the way I want to live!”

I bumped into my neighbor on the way back. She's a mother of three children and her husband works all day. They have a big house and she says she is happy.

But is she happy?

“We should play badminton sometime,” I suggested.

“But I have so much to do!” She replied. “Every day I wake up, cook, get the kids off to school, clean, watch TV, collect the kids again, cook, watch TV again, and go back to bed. I don't have time for anything else.”

I was left speechless. My sense of adventure pinched me so hard it hurt. Why do we settle for a life that is so predictable and boring? We resign ourselves to paddling along with the conventional current because it’s comfortable. It’s safe. Everyone else is doing it.

But life was meant to be a legend, not a chore. Life is fleeting and fragile. We never know how much time we have here. Why not take a deep breath, step outside of our comfort zones, and into the uncertainty of opportunity?

·         Like taking that vacation to Brazil.

·         Like finally signing up for white water rafting lessons.

·         Like spending more time with loved ones.

·         Like falling in love.

·         Like learning to choose how we want to live.

Life is about bucking the current.