Having precariously toed the line between life and death as a child and again since then, I am all too aware of the transient, fleeting, ephemeral nature of life. It is something I think about every day. But instead of taking a momento mori approach to the precious brevity of my existence, I wrestle with the existential angst of knowing that I can never see or know where the hands on the countdown clock of my life lie.
The unrest caused by this uncertainty and ambiguity has fueled my insatiable curiosity. It has likewise given me an almost frantic desperation to want to be, do, feel, have, and see everything I possibly can in this human experience. Hence, I often try to squeeze the last drop of productivity out of each day, even when it paradoxically compromises my health (and hence my longevity).
I also decided many years ago to never read the same book or piece of poetry more than once; to never watch the same movie twice; and to never travel to the same places time and again. I reasoned that there is so much (and an ever-growing amount) in the world to experience, that is worth experiencing, and I want to experience as much of it as I can.
Due to a constellation of circumstances in past month or so, however, I’ve watched several movies that I had previously seen. The fond nostalgia I held for one of the movies was rekindled as I re-watched it. Interestingly, two other movies I remember loving had lost their charm and whimsy the second time around. Perhaps most surprisingly, I remember harboring a distinctly adverse sentiment towards one of the movies when I first saw it. This time, however, not only did I thoroughly appreciate and enjoy the movie; I actually felt comforted by it.
What had changed? The movies themselves certainly had not. No, of course I was the changed one. Marcel Proust famously wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” I would add that having “new eyes” is inevitable, as long as we keep them open. Perhaps Heraclitus said it best: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
Just as the external world is in a constant state of flux, so too can we not avoid the currents of change. We often think of our identities as static structures, but they are as transient as our lives themselves. We believe that our outside appearance is the biggest indicator of our aging when in truth, our external appearance both literally and metaphorically only scratches the surface of the changes that take place in us with time.
When thinking about this lesson in the context of other areas of living, I find that it can be applied to my notion of failure and giving up. Just because we are unsuccessful at something the first time is no reason to jump ship. Grit is the willingness to persist through the hardship of not succeeding easily or instantaneously. Resilience is about bouncing back from loss. Having a growth mindset is about recognizing that we can eventually get to the other side of the river because with each step we take, we are no longer the same men and women.
Reflection:
This year, whether it is a commitment to increase the number of times you go to the gym or whether it is the desire to learn how to play the guitar or whether it is the resolution to stop raising your voice when you are angry – don’t jump ship just because you are not successful the first time around. After all, the only failure is the failure to keep showing up, the failure to keep trying, the failure to not give yourself and your life another chance.
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