Sunday, August 06, 2006

Choosing to Live

Each morning when I wake up, I get to decide how I want to spend the day. Usually I do a little breathing exercise and some meditation. This takes around half an hour but this is the time I feel restless, eager to finish with my morning chores and hit the day that is waiting for me head on. A typical day involves work at office, household chores, giving time to my family which includes a six-month baby, and some voluntary service work that I do. I thrive on multiplexing between them. There may be many benefits of this little morning exercise, many that I have experienced already and many that I am yet to experience perhaps, but there is one basic reason why I do it. If I cannot sit with my own self and my breath for barely half an hour, am I really experiencing life, experiencing my own self or just running away from it?

I decide I am running way. Running from brushing my teeth to eating my breakfast. Running from eating breakfast to driving to office. Running from driving my car to reaching my workplace. Running from one meeting to another. Running away from day to night and night to day. Running away from life towards …what?

My daughter is 6 months old. She spends her days in a hurry to grow up, trying her hardest to sit up…not satisfied with that; she tries to stand on her feet. All I can say is that - I know the feeling.

Like her, I have not made the choice of running away from what I have to what I don't have. Somewhere, I just Am, like she just Is.

So each morning I make the choice to sit. Just with myself. If there is pain inside, that is me – so I don't run away. If there is too much joy, happiness, it is even harder for me, but still I sit, I refuse to run away. If there is restlessness, well …even that is me. What am I restless about? My own self? My breath, my mind? So I do not run away.

It is not really a choice. Because there is never a choice between choosing to live and anything else. Once I agree to choose, I realize there is no choice.


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