Sensibly Nonsensical
Shorts by TeriLK

0206 - Finite

A life “well-lived” is a life full of balance between decisions we make every day on whatever scale, such as the long-term vs. the short-term. Although we are constantly reminded to view ourselves as small in comparison to the greater scheme of things, I find this difficult to completely practice as a daily “philosophy.” Generally yes, for the long-term one life does not have a humongous impact on the world, but at the same time if everyone thought that way would anything happen in the world? Would leaders have arisen in the past? Would revolutions have occurred? Would conditions have even existed where such actions would be necessary?

Yes, it is crucial that we keep in mind that we cannot operate to, for the lack of a better term, our maximum “potential” without the people with whom we share the world or a community or familial relations. Still, if we lived every day without a sense of balance between short-term effects and long-term effects, we would not get very far developmentally and simply in our ability to maintain stability of any degree in our general lifestyles. If a parent made a child’s decisions for them based solely on long-term results (to reflect the well known “mantra” of doing what’s best now for later) the child would not necessarily appreciate the parent during their childhood. Instead, they may potentially lose a close relationship at such an integral moment in life, albeit the respect and gratitude given when they are older.

Keeping that in mind, our sense of balance is one of the greatest definitive factors we use to make our decisions. It appears in many different degrees—specifically there can be the daily weighting of pros versus cons or the reality versus the ideal. Even our sense of balance versus dominant opinions may be a factor. Still, such entities only come into effect based on other factors which influence us – a parent during infancy, the media and our peers during adolescence, or a job during adulthood. We are constantly revising our lives around our experiences and what we tend to draw (or not draw) from them.

In my case, I obviously am ignorant of such realities as earning a living because I cannot yet relate to those situations on extreme personal levels. But I formulate my opinions largely based on a skill that we all possess and exercise daily: learning. May it be a course or a fight with someone close to me I am constantly re-evaluating both the position I hold in my private life and the one I hold now or potentially will in my public one. My values, for example, are largely based on what I gather from my small position in an extremely large, thriving range (in multiculturalism, gender and age) of family and family-friends. An example is my low tolerance for close-minded prejudices and discrimination-based factors to decision-making (on whatever scale). As a kid I did not think of racism while playing with cousins who bore no resemblance to myself yet now, in a high school where one can look around and see the visible cliques (much less the visible minorities), I more thoroughly understand that “racism” is a very existent and underlying issue that cannot be demolished but rather correctly portrayed as superficial.

Our lives will always fluctuate between the long-term and short-term decisions we encounter. I have learned that one simply should not live in constant paranoia of making mistakes or poor decisions and weighting situations based on the unfair comparison to perfection – both an unrealistic and far too idealistic mentality. I am (at the time of writing not sharing) a high school student who doesn’t know exactly what I want to be when I “grow up” yet, but I’m fine with that. I’m not going nuts because I’m not wasting away by appreciating my opportunities to learn while they exist. Though life may not last forever, I try not to forget it is still life – a term which I define as continuing to learn and grow until whenever the “finite” ends.