If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?

This question was posed by a friend on Facebook.  Someone commented:  Fear.  Another person commented: Does that stand for False Evidence Appearing Real? The first thing that came to my mind was:  Survival. 

When I was in my teens, the world was my oyster. I was full of lofty hopes and dreams and believed that they would all come true. I was sure it was just a matter of time – being in the right place at the right time. In my twenties I worked at a job that I thought was temporary to make money to pay my bills just until my real life began. I squeezed in classes and training to prepare for what I was born to do while working a full time job at something else.

I never quite got to where I wanted to be. I lost the passion or missed the boat or didn’t try hard enough or just gave up. It was such a long, drawn out evolution that I don’t really remember the exact pinpoint that deflated my visionary balloon. Instead of choosing my destiny, I let destiny choose for me.  I eventually met someone and focused in another direction. I got married, had kids and my thirties and forties were years filled with raising a loving family. My job became the resource for paying the bills and providing. It became what I would be doing for the rest of my life. I worked for my kids – lovingly and without reservation. My life was set into a pattern of family, friends, job, and responsibilities. The lofty things I used to want to do were pushed way back into the crevices of my mind.  

In answer to the question:  I did so many things I didn’t like to survive…to provide.  I like so many things I didn’t do because there wasn’t enough time or the means to do so.  It all revolved around survival, so that’s my final answer.

Every now and then the burnt-out embers of my dreams filter through the denial in my mind, and my heart flutters at the remembrance of my long ago hopes of what could have been, if only.  Maybe another time…another place.  Who knows?