An Ode to a Friend

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine still in his early twenties passed away in a road accident. I had befriended him at school. We were classmates. He, as young man, was extremely intelligent and enterprising. Come to think of it, he was also quite funny. Not to mention he did manage his share of girls who had little schoolgirl crushes on him.

Eventually, though, when I passed out of school, we lost touch, just the few rumors of what he was upto from common friends.

However, while I was doing my masters, I got in touch with another school friend who broke it to me. This friend of mine was died. He had passed away in a road accident a while back.

I could suddenly hear my heart thumping. There were no words nor any thoughts in my mind. I simply blanked out. It came like an absolute jolt. I almost choked.

Now I hadn’t been in touch with him for a while so I wasn’t exactly close to him of late, but we had been good friends back in school, and when you hear something like this all those moments you have shared with the person come gushing back to you. Almost like a flood of thought and emotion. This boy was up for an absolutely bright future, but with this freak mishap, his life had ended. Life had abruptly just ceased. He was dead.
And in that moment another thing hit me. All that we plan, all that we look forward to in life, as if it would almost never end, can. All in the snap of a finger.

We spend our entire lives planning for a future. We build towards what we believe we want to do and be. And that is not wrong, for that is how we can steer what little control we do have over our lives. But most often, we lose sight of the here and now. And this does not mean just this moment, but also what we desire in this day today or the coming month, or year.

This already has become the generation of instant gratification and restlessness. The want for everything ‘right now’ is the norm. But the reference here is not to self indulgence or gratification. It is to the idea of the importance of time.

It is extremely important to have goals in life, but while we do this macro-management of how we want to live our future, we must not lose sight of the fact that this here is exactly your life. You are unfolding it as you read this very passage.

This is the moment right here. You could be anywhere in the world right now and could be doing anything thing you want to. Here is where you chose to be and this is what you chose to do. Life is now. Life is unfolding this very moment.

Think about it.

Macro-manage, but don’t forget to micromanage a little too. Each day that you live is a day you lose forever. Are you sure that this is how you wished to spend it? Think about it. And then think about this- Was the day you spent today, how you wished to have spent it? Was yesterday? Was the last month worth your life? Could it have been better? And this is not the same as a glass half empty, but more of the concept of a glass half empty, sure, but you drank it and it was splendid.

How about this, ‘That last year you spent living- had you skipped it altogether, would you have missed it?’ Try answering that same question for last month, or last week and things start to get a whole lot freakier.

This does not mean that you have to fruitfully spend each living minute in learning and making complete sense. It simply means that you should have lived it and not drifted past it. But perhaps you wanted to indulge in a night out last week, perhaps you wanted to spend last weekend with your parents but didn’t. Perhaps it was that horse riding session. Perhaps you think you have all the time in the world to do, things you have simply pushed onto the back burner. Kind of like when you live in a city, you have in all probability never seen its most important historical facets, or things that you make sure you see as a tourist when you go visit distant places. Perhaps because you have that feeling that you could do it anytime- Your not going anywhere, and neither is the city.

Well tell that to my friend who passed away, or to his family. This is the most important thing my friend has taught me, unfortunately it has been in his passing.

Go ahead and do today. Not to leave any space for regret of not having done should my time be limited, and it is limited for all of us, make no mistake.

Imagine if you had only but a month or year to live. And while I hope it never comes to that, one year it finally will, but imagine for just a moment if it was true now. What do you do?

I leave you here with that one thought to ponder upon. Those thoughts you have right this moment in you mind, perhaps its time you acted on some of them.

Today is a gift. This moment is a gift. Embrace it.

This is your moment in passing right here, right now.
This is what you chose to do and where you chose to be.