Sitting on my couch in the living room, I am slowly being warmed by occasionally sipping a cup of warm coffee. Beautiful music fills the room, piano and strings create a rainbow of harmonious sounds in “The best holiday season ever” by Fernando Velazquez. I just put a log in the fireplace and started a fire to warm the atmosphere.
I am home. I… am…home….
Today, I will be spending at home with my son, doing the mundane tasks that home life requires and that I deeply enjoy and, mostly, taking the time to live and to breathe.
In the past, I have written a lot on the challenges and problems that the frenetic pace of our lives creates.
To be honest, for me, before 2021, they’ve been mostly thoughts and words. The pace of my life did not change or slow down significantly in the last 10 years. It is easy to talk, harder to act and almost impossible to change. Such is human nature and I am completely open about it.
Thoughts and words, this is where a potential for change is born.
As long as ideas stay ideas and words stay words, they have no value.
Value in the real world is created through change and action.
It took a major world event, the Covid-19 pandemic, to force this realization upon my mind. It took being isolated in my home and forcefully slowing down to help me understand the value of this change.
Life is short, I have already spent half of it. Time speeds up. I feel an urgency to live… and to live well. The starting point for change is to take the time to reflect, to be grateful for all the privileges and opportunities I have enjoyed. Pleasure and suffering will always coexist. Happiness is mostly a matter of perspective and, at some point, of choice.
My life’s meaning is not about all the things I do and how I fill my life with fun events, actionable tasks, daily chores and to-do lists. Life must be lived in the moment. Waiting for tomorrow’s sunshine to be happy is a mistake.
Of all the things I am able to do and all the places I am able to go, this is not where I will find my peace. My peace is here. My peace is created now, in my mind, in the choices I make and the perspective I take to look upon the world.
Our lives will always be full of problems. No matter where we are and what we are doing, life always brings problems. We can let ourselves be crushed by the setbacks of life or we can choose to use them as stepping stones to grow and to learn, to change. When I look back at the 47 years of my life, I understand that my greatest problems have been my greatest gifts.
Let’s take this moment to be grateful for what life brings.
Thank you.
Martin Pham Dinh 