Is this our life?

I’m afraid it is. It is inevitable for all that live a sedentary life. There is no way to help it. You need to spend most of your time in your everyday routine. You have to live within your structured day. If you have a formatted life, you don’t have other choice but live it.
We enter inevitably in a routine. Pre-determined tasks, programmed hours, formatted day. you get up, you wash up, get coffee, you get traffic to work, you turn on your computer, you take 1hour to lunch in the 2 or 3 same places with the same people, you get back to work for another 4 or 5 stressful hours, you get traffic to get home, you have dinner, you see some tv to give a break to your worried and already tired mind, you wash up, you go to bed, you turn on your alarm-clock… The days seem very similar. A Thursday is not that different from a Tuesday, only closer to the weekend.
This is the dark scenario implicit in this picture. Seeing it leaves us automatically a bit sad and blue as we don’t see anything special being characterized in it. And those not harmed with this implicit message, that don’t see or care with the standardization of their lives and don’t want or need more being added to their lives, are truly weak of spirit and gray-hearted persons.

BUT
What this picture doesn’t show is what you can do, think or feel in those pre-formatted hours you have to fulfil. What this picture doesn’t show is that something special that we live (or should live) even with our sour structured day.
Because in everyday, in every hour, in every minute the heart and the mind, the emotion and the reason, are active and have a word to say. And that makes your day special and different. We only need to realize and interiorize that.

The laugh with fellow co-workers in the morning coffee, the proud of getting that task done with efficacy, the contact you receive from that special someone, the new learning you got of something you didn’t know (whatever that is… It could be the new way to do analysis in that new software, the different way to bake some cake, the date of birth of Winston Churchill or the history of king Solomon you saw on History channel, anything…), the new restaurant you found, the thrill of getting a new idea, the headline of that pink magazine saying that David Hasselhof stated that his magical car Kit was gay, the anxiety of preparing and giving a surprise to someone you love, the comfort in that special good night kiss, etc, etc, etc. Reason and Emotion. 2 variables that can and should be fed. With Attitude. And the right attitude can be applied to designing a new car or taking coffee to someone. You need Attitude in every hour. You need creativity, passion, motivation. You need will for knowledge, you need to be eager to experiment. You need to dream and search for that dream. You need to try to do things different. You have to fight the routine and try everyday to accomplish something. Dress different, wake up at a different time, search for different places to eat, instead of watching tv read a book or play computer, write a text, call that friend you don’t speak for ages, go after that laugh in the morning coffee, write in English for a change… the keyword is: difference… Experiment! Explore! Be spirituous! Make the difference happen! Don’t let yourself fade and don’t be conformed with the “way thing are” (unless you like them, off course). That’s the way to overcome those innumerable hideous tasks we all have to do in the pitiful daily life retracted in this picture. That’s the way to change the colour of the gray Thursday and make it different from Tuesday.

Our life portrayed in the way of this picture push us down. But there’s no need to it. As Monthy Pythons put it: “always look on the bright side of life”. Seize the day. More than that, Seize the Life. It’s impossible to “live everyday like there’s no tomorrow”, the big cliché of our times. It’s simply not possible because 80% of the content of the “everyday” is pushed upon us, is already given. But you can live your life as there was no other life, and there isn’t, playing the best you can with the cards that you have. Even if in the daily life you already know which cards you’ll receive tomorrow. But in the deck of your life it is yourself that choose the cards and deal them.

So, is this our life? Yes, I’m afraid it is. There is no way to help it. But there’s ways to overcome it. Just fulfil the hours with all your heart and mind.