I've now lived nearly 39 years of my life. I've probably seen more than a lot of people, not all by choice and certainly a not a lot of what I wanted to see. Looking back 25 years I certainly never imagined my life to be like this. But here I am.
What makes my life unique, what contribution will I leave? What legacy do I want to leave?
Although I've had a variety of topics through my posts I do seem to keep circling back to the same theme. And it comes back to my word for 2015, being mindful. I need to live mindfully. For my own health, sense of self and sanity.
If I have to put aside my own 'complicated' life for a minute and just think about the world around me in the last month or so the news has been filled with stories of the airplane crash in the French mountains where 149 innocent people lost their lives by the senseless act of one person. Here in South Africa we've had defacing of statues of men who have been gone for 150+ years, the new youth suddenly finding them to oppressive to face. Yesterday we had xenophobic attacks in the city I live in and love - the people attacked were only done so on the basis of the fact that they were not from this country. There has been a recent story out of the US of a mother who had her baby cut out of her womb, yet the attacker will, by a quirk in law, not be charged with murder despite the baby dying.
All of the above is senseless, cruel and heartless. Yet 149 families, and the family of the man who brought down the plane, the people displaced by the xenophobic attacks and who have lost all and are living in fear, and the mother who lost the baby she had carried for 7 months, have to somehow, in all that hurt, fear and anger, find it in them to pick up the pieces and carry on.
You see life only gives us 2 options. Pick up and keep going. Or give up and die. That's it. There is no middle ground. Therein lies the spirit in all of us. The instinct of survival. The needing to keep going.
All those people above only have one of those two options and the majority, like me, will choose to keep going. I have faced challenges I would not wish on an enemy but I am choosing each day to get up and face them. Not because I have to but because I can.
I want my legacy to be that despite all the challenges I faced life with grace and strength and I didn't back down even when I really had enough reason to.
Life is for living. The road is not always smooth but it is up to you to enjoy the ride.