“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
This post is inspired by a train journey on the way home from London the other day.
I had spent a lovely day out in London and was feeling very happy, calm and grateful. Little did i know I was at the train station bang on rush hour in London. Oh what a great place to find myself in. I was observing the other passengers; boarding the train there was pushing and shoving and shouting to one another. Once we were on the train I had never witness such as lifeless bunch of people. Everybody was immediately glued to their phones, almost hypnotized into a distraction from the reality they all seemed like they had. Their phones served the purpose of keeping them distracted and not having to really ask themselves if they were living their life, fitting with the above quotation. If people weren't engulfed in their phones then they were drinking alcohoI on the train. One lady opposite me actually had to reach for her Gin. The alcohol just seemed to make these people numb and vacuous to their current reality. I doubt 90% of the passengers on that train could be true to themselves and no BS themselves and really say that they were happy with their lives. Yet, they ALL still have unlimited choices when they wake up in the morning yet, as ignorant as they may be, are choosing to lead the life that they live. There was a time when this could have been me, getting dragged into the treadmill and rat race of life. But upon observing and honestly feeling as if i have jumped out of the matrix, i ask myself: 'is this really what life has to offer'? Continuous, repetitive, depressing cycles of dis-empowerment. That is what I saw in the people around me. I am so glad and grateful that I am not that person/those people. I pray for them and wish them the best. But I try to live a life somewhat fitting to Eleanor Roosevelt's quotation.
