What makes us wake up one
day and begin living our lives differently than the previous day? Sure, maybe
people don’t stick with their New Year’s resolutions or to the promises made to
loved ones that today will be the last cigarette. And maybe our public announcements
that we are writing a book (um…why yes, it is continuing to write itself!) don’t quite act as
the catalyst of change we were hoping for. But sometimes, for some reason,
something clicks and we change the way we are living. For real. And for good.
I imagine that a
near-death experience might be an impetus for change. Or an actual death – of a
loved one or even a stranger, someone you saw every morning at the newsstand as
you walked by with a coffee on your way to work. Then again, like so much of life, there might be the ironic
twist that perhaps such events cause a person to remain static, stuck like a
deer in headlights, in life.
While traveling and living
abroad, I’ve had enough experiences during which I thought I might not make it
to see the next day’s sunrise. Any time I was in a car in the Philippines, I
considered the possibility of death. My boyfriend at the time and I would sit
in the backseat, stare straight ahead in fear and hold hands tightly. There was
one point where we leaned in and confessed our love to each other, whispering
intimately amidst whatever chaos we felt was going to soon kill us.
Then there was the time in Japan. I was living on the north island of Hokkaido and
decided to go hiking alone one weekend. I drove to a trailhead where I saw a
lot of signs posted around the parking lot but no other cars. Since I was just
learning to very slowly read only simple Japanese, I didn’t want to spend the
time to decipher the gist of the signs. So I ignored them. It was about 30
minutes into my hike that I heard the first sound. A low grumble that proceeded
to get louder and louder until I realized: there was a bear in the woods on the
right side of the trail. Slowly, I turned around and without looking back walked
the very long 30 minutes back
to my car. I got in, locked the doors, and realized my entire body was shaking.
That’s when I read the signs, which stated emphatically: Warning! Bears! People
don’t enter! (Or something like that.)
Death-by-bear escape #1.
There was only one time
abroad as a child that I felt death nearly grab me. I used to go to the
Caribbean with my family when I was growing up. I played on the beach a lot and
adored the water. But once a wave hit me while I wasn’t paying attention, and I
was hurtled and spun around underwater without knowing which way was up. At
that time, I could feel my body moving fast but my mind slowing down. It was
like watching baby bunnies slowly hopping about while listening to hardcore
music: totally disparate and unexpected yet oddly heightening the senses. I
thought I was going to die. Clearly, I didn't.
For me, the actual
momentous impetus didn’t happen with any of these or other near-death
experiences; it came in a dream. Well, more like from a series of nightmares
over the course of a few nights. And no, I did not finally let my love of Frankenstein and Mary Shelley get the better of me. Because,
again, this isn’t about the changing of my writing habits at all -- “I write when
the spirit moves me”, ya'll -- but rather about my financial future. And let me
be honest and tell you this: those were some dark nightmares I had. Like locked
in the basement of a nursing home at the age of 5 kind of dark.
However, we all wake up,
don’t we? After my subconscious
found a way to turn the idea of my financial planning – which consists of
little more than cotton candy and crayon drawings – into horror-filled scenes
of the future, I woke up: literally and figuratively. I tend to forget that the
catalyst to any change I ever want to make is simply me. We have the control to
remake our habits, to take at least some step to be the person we want to
become, to act in ways we admire. “Our own life has to be our message.” We shouldn’t rely on other people to propel us
toward this, shouldn’t wait for an accident to push us into action. It takes
effort to change and to start that change now. But I want to live in a way that
won’t give me nightmares.
Quotes courtesy of William Faulkner and Thich Nhat
Hanh
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