At times, in the middle of something, I stop to pause and reconsider what I do for a living. Is it worth the long hours and the endless rearranging of my brain cells? The money is okay. The fame so-so. What am I contributing?How am I helping someone? Am I even helping anyone? Or do I delude myself? I cannot imagine doing anything else.
I do not choose to be stuck, I choose to be happy with what I do. I am yet to get to the point where I know what I am doing. For now, I exist on a hand-to-mouth basis. But I am not complaining. I only hope to avoid pitfalls where if I fall, I could end up breaking my neck. This is my aspiration. One of my many aspirations.
The only problem is that I am running after my dreams: yesterday, today, tomorrow. Can I quell my desire to be successful? I thought I would and could live my life with higher ideals: those of dreams fulfilled and to live today as if it were the last day of my life, to cherish and to be cherished...to be basely human. What's wrong with that? I thought I had a purposeful life...
Until my aunt walked into a bookstore and picked up Osamu Tezuka's "Buddha"- a manga series. Now I think. More than I'd like.
How do I empty myself? Is it even necessary? Actually, am I brave enough to be empty? My life is in so much contradiction to Buddha's philosophy. I want to be a lay disciple. And now another aspiration calmly makes its way towards me, that of a Buddhist journalist. A journalist is what I have always wanted to be, I don't even need to try, it is my "nature" as Buddha would have said. What I need to be is content. Helpful. Moderate. And humble.
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