“Tell me,

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Mary Oliver

Recently , I happened to read a book called ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ -a memoir of an old professor who is slowly dying of ALS(a fatal disease which affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and leads to a gradual loss of muscle control making it difficult to move, speak, swallow and eventually breathe). It was a precious reminder of how brief life really is considering all the things we want to be and do.

I, ( like everybody else) used to think that life stretched endlessly ahead and that I would have forever to do all the things I wished and hoped and dreamed of. In my early thirties now, I have recently started asking myself some deep questions-

What are my core values?

What makes my life meaningful?

What do I really love doing?

What difference do I want to make in the world?

Often, most of us are so busy hustling through life, ticking off checklists and comparing ourselves with others that there is really no room to ponder upon lifes’ most important questions. We sprint along in a mindless daze for years and years until one sudden evening- we realise that we lived a life that wasn’t true to ourself. And that its too late to start anew.

We cram up our schedule with so many ”top-priority items” that have nothing to do with who we are and what we love. Day after day, I see my dearest friends and colleagues crumbling under the weight of having to do it all. From looking after small kids, working a demanding job, decorating the house and cooking meals from scratch – there are so many roles we are expected to fulfill.

 But – Can we really do it all?

I do not think so. Trade offs are the secret sauce to a fulfilling life. It is normal to want to be everything to everybody. But life doesn’t work that way.

I cant probably slip in making a fresh breakfast and working out in the 40 minutes I have before I head off to the clinic.

Neither can I probably meet up with my friends(who are all atleast a flight away) and attend important Dermatology conferences in a year. There is always a trade-off.

 I cant treat myself to blueberry cheesecakes every Friday and have a fit physique at the same time.

Well, you get the point!

And isn’t life too short and precious to be doing things that do not nourish your soul?

As a side effect of the hyper connectedness of social media, we see glamourized versions of an ideal life.

But there is no such thing. What matters is that we find time for things that we put off toward an imagined future where we take care of our body and mind and spirit.

Rather than living a life in default mode (as if the final screenplay has already been written in stone),can we customize our life?

Can I find the time to question the day I live over and over and over till I am dead?

Can I ask myself if I am working too much or too little?

Am I doing the little things that make me happy?

Am I living a life the eight year old me (full of curiosity and wonder and dreams) would be proud of?

Am I living by the values ingrained in me since I was little, just because questioning them has become too hard?

What do I want to be thinking and dreaming and talking about?

Unless we ask ourselves a few difficult questions, it is impossible to find the clarity we need to make changes in the right direction.

This moment, this day- ‘The Present’ is all we’ve got right now.

 And we got to do better by us.