The Choice

It occurred to me recently that we have a choice. We can have a little life – a life based on gradually diminishing pleasures until, one day, we snuff it. This is the life that converges on a cost-benefit analysis of life – on an accountant’s truth. Or we can have the kind of life that the heart is leading us towards. It is – we might say – a divergent life. Instead of settling for what’s possible, the heart dreams big – longing for new joys, new ecstasies – and along he way the heart accepts new fears, new pain, new heartache. And, well, I have to admit that often I still long for the little life – the life that’s controlled, managed and predictable. But, all the while, there’s a sense of that radical alternative life – the sound of giant wingbeats somewhere far off. It’s the wingbeats of a Wild Cosmos, speaking to the wild soul. So there’s no little life possible really – the Cosmos will always intervene. The lessons of the heart are tough – joy earned through heartache, pleasure won in the face of fear and all the contentment snatched from the jaws of despair. Tough – yes. But this is the greater life that the hear invites us to. And I’m going to keep trying to live it.

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