Today I read an interesting article in a magazine which classified people - or, more specifically, women - into two categories; those who were happy for their lives to just happen around them - who were content to just, for want of a better word, 'be' - and those who actively sought to fill every spare moment of their time with some kind of activity, chasing enlightenment or fulfilment or excitement in any or all of its forms.
The theory behind the behaviour of those falling into the latter category was that thrill seekers are driven by a desire to stay young - because when we're young, so many experiences are new to us that time seems almost to stand still, whereas when you start to grow older and there are fewer new experiences to be had, time seems to pass far more quickly.
I have to say this really struck a chord with me. Amongst my group of friends (and, in particular my housemates, who have the misfortune to witness my neuroses virtually all the time) I'm renowned for being paranoid about getting older, and I'm always dreaming of wild and wacky things I can do, whether it be swimming with whale sharks, going to a rave dance class, underground bingo, trekking in the Peruvian Andes....the list goes on. I'm also usually the first person to get a group together and plan a big club night.
But you know what? I may be paranoid about getting older, and I may be a bit on the wacky side of normal, but so what? I'd rather have new experiences galore for the rest of my life than sit on my backside as life passes me by. Surely life's all about new experiences; meeting new people, going to new places, trying new things, pushing boundaries, testing your limits? Where's the fun if you don't occasionally step outside your comfort zone? There's so much to see, to do, to know, to learn, in this great, vast place we call the World - more, sadly, than any one of us could hope to see/do/know/learn in a lifetime. Why waste it by being a wallflower? When I die I want to be able to look back on my life and think 'Wow, didn't I do a lot of things?' A bit like David Attenborough, one of my idols - I'll bet when he (God forbid) shuffles off this mortal coil he'll do so with a huge smile on his face and the knowledge that he did everything he could. Which is exactly what I plan to do. There's a big, wide world out there, people. Enjoy it.
Big wide world aside, I can't let today pass without a reference to those great and good servicemen who sacrificed their lives for our freedom - not just in the Great War, but in every war and dispute since then, right up to the present day:
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them.
God Bless them all x
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