The Only Way To Make This Life Matter

There are those moments when a stray line from an actor's script grabs your attention by the collar, causes you to scramble and pause the show, rewind the reel by a few seconds to replay it, then stay in the elevated 'learning moment' for a minute with a faraway look, as the wife looks on bewildered by the unilateral, spasmodic, and mystifying way the spouse has been affected by god-knows-what.

My wife and I started watching an ‘ok’ show called Manifest which was streaming on Amazon Prime in India. There are only a few shows that we have been able to agreeably watch in the many years we have co-habitated. We are usually very relieved when we find even a mediocre one we can put up with.

At a certain point in the middle of Season 2 Ep. 11, one of the casts utters

I have been staying alive and not living.

Manifest, Season 2, Ep.11.

The context of the character's story is depressing at this point. But strangely this phrase did not pop up at a dramatic moment in the episode. It is in the middle of a conversation he is having with his fiancé.

The line hit me like a ton of bricks. For one, the phrase is philosophically and existentially loaded. Secondly, it made me think through how the character's statement was performed at an ordinary moment.

I want to focus on the latter.

His statement was not treated by the screenwriter as extraordinary nor given significance in its positioning in the story or delivery.

It made me wonder—Is not life like that?

We live every moment not designing some moments to emerge as significant and others ordinary.

We live. That’s what we do.

We have normal conversations with our spouse, children, parents, neighbours, and friends.

We cook, clean, throw the trash, drive, talk, have fun, cry, watch a show, and exist in the ordinariness of everyday life.

I realized I need to lean more into my everyday moments as those moments are what life is made up of. Living the ordinary in an engaged manner is what will ultimately make life matter.

Ignoring the little moments—when my daughter sneezes, when my wife wants me to pick something on the way back from work, when my mother talks about the needs of a certain relative, when a colleague hands me a stapler, etc.—is what the ignorant do.

And I tend to be a fool. To my detriment.

But no more.

I want to be mindful and careful. I want to lean into the present. In this lies love, joy, and peace as I live within a community around me.

Staying alive and living are two different things. And I intend on make this life matter.