Monday, March 03, 2008 Lenten reflections on life By Henry L. Yu, M.D.
WHAT is life?
Time and again, we’ve asked ourselves this same question. There are as many definitions as there are so many people we’ve been with, places we’ve been to, events that have happened in our lives, and a truckload of memories that have been built and created through the years.
If we analyze it, life is really simple.
We came into this world with only a shrill cry that signaled the beginning of life. From the delivery room, we were placed in the nursery. Everybody was rejoicing. A star was born.
We were discharged from the hospital. From then on, it was home sweet home.
Thereafter, we started learning things at home or in school by observing, imitating, conditioning, questioning, etc. The environment played a crucial part in our personality development, so were the people surrounding us: our teachers, neighbors, relatives, etc.
Consciously or unconsciously we picked up values or traits from them and these we applied or practiced in our lives. And that started the ball rolling.
Life then has never been the same again!
It is actually humanity that makes life complicated. We are given a free choice: to live life simply or to live it in a complicated way.
Life is like a multiple choice-type of exam. We are to follow instructions carefully. Encircle the best answer. No erasures allowed. Cheating will be dealt with accordingly.
Indeed, life is simple. But then, as human beings, we tend to want more, more, and more, to dream big, even to the point of dreaming the impossible dream and reaching for the unreachable star.
We just couldn’t stay put and be contented with whatever we have.
Just because our neighbor has this and that, we also would want to have this and that.
We attend to compare our life and status with those around us. We want life to be in accu-color, not just in black and white. And along the way, life becomes complicated.
Again, the choice is all ours. The earlier we decide, the better.
One author wrote: “Aging is a slow process of saying goodbye. We say goodbye to friends who die ahead of us. We say goodbye to familiar places as we move from the old neighborhood to a village in the suburbs.
“We say goodbye to old traditions, old ideas and old, familiar church hymns and love songs. Everything seems to be leaving us when we grow old and gray, even our eyesight and memory.”
Indeed, life is a cycle.
We were yesterday’s kids, today’s family men and women, and tomorrow’s senior citizens.
It’s a purpose-driven life in this hello-and-goodbye world. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by accident. You are you. I am me. We all have a role to play. We cannot be Jack-of-all-trades.
So let us not therefore compare ourselves with others because by so doing, we will only become vain and bitter.
For always, there will be greater and lesser people than us in this world.
Life is not a contest. Let us try to be contented with what we have, and be happy with what we are. Simplify life. Live simply.
