What Matters Most

Hi everyone. Happy Tuesday...it's Tuesday, right? I've lost track, anyway, so this is an essay/poem that I wrote a few days back. I was sitting on the couch and it hit me, a revelation of sorts. My hope is that it resonates with you, or at the very least, you can take something from it and apply it to your life.  If all else, I hope you enjoy!

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What Matters Most

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What’s funny is you already know the answer to that question. You already know what matters most, but you have become blind to it, so numb, so conditioned to falsity. Some think it is as difficult as solving the meaning of life, but that question is easy. Life itself is the meaning. Do you get it yet? Do you understand? 

Still, people ponder the question, “What matters most?” And today I found the answer....

I’ll tell you again, though, you already know what it is. But what good is a story where you already know the ending? So, for that sake, let me paint the picture by asking you the question...

what matters most?

Is it love? Romantic love, I mean. Do you want to do everything for that person? Do they make you crazy in the way nobody will ever know or understand? Do they keep you up at night? Do you wake up with a phone call in the middle of it? Are they the first thought of your day, after you’ve spent a whole night dreaming about them? Do you imagine what life would be like without them? No, because you probably can’t imagine life without them. But, at the end of the day, at the end of a lifetime lived seemingly for them, do they love you as you did them?

what matters most?

Is it family and friends? Is it the people you’ve known the longest? Or the ones who know you the most? The ones who pulled you out of bed on a random Friday night? Or the ones you invite over for Thanksgiving dinner when they’re away from their families during college? The ones who are willing to stand by your side and sing the cheesiest karaoke song to a bar full of ten drunks? Are they the ones who you confide your deepest, darkest secrets? The ones who won’t judge you on those admissions? The ones who will get arrested for you, the ones who will fight for you, the ones who would die for you? The parents, brothers, sisters and the ones who you would call-so even if you weren’t connected by blood?

what matters most?

Is it your goals? The aspirations you work so hard to achieve? Is it the endless hours spent behind the cover of a book or the screen of a computer? Or the studying and studying and studying to prep you for the tests you take to get the grades you need to send you off to the college of your dreams? Perhaps it’s the job you’ve worked your whole life? The one your father did or the one where you started as a bus boy and graduated to executive chef? Is it the sense of pride in accomplishment? Is it the big house, the money, the cars, the respect from your nameless neighbors, named the Jones' next door? Will you be fulfilled in being that other person who you dreamed of being? But is that really you?

what matters most?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s pleasure. From the first hit of joint to chasing the dragon up your arm? The epic sensation, the never-ending tingling feeling of pure Nirvana derived from chemical artificiality. What about sex? Pleasure at it’s purest, most natural, organic definition. The undefinable feeling of being with and inside that person. The hard-10, the great white buffalo, the one you’ve only ever fantasized about? How about the high you get while performing on stage? Being the world’s idol, the person the media can’t get enough of? Your face plastered across every magazine, TV, and website. Knowing that you are the best there ever was, and believing you are the best there ever will be? Would that make you happy? 

what matters most?

Creativity perhaps? The songwriter laying down the greatest musical track of a generation? The actor who achieved the accolades for a career of top-notch acting? Walking up to the stage that is surrounded by hundreds of your piers only to know that you won, that you were better than the rest? How about the quiet, starving artists who sees the impurity and flaws of a world, so they become a recluse and paint the most amazing portrait only to have it sit lonely in a storage space for all eternity? More-so, how is creativity defined and judged? By a crooked academy? By the public you’ve tried to hard to win over? When you’ve played your last tune, acted your last performance, and written your last verse, what has it all been for?

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Here we are, at the end. Do you get it yet? Do you understand now? Can you answer the question, what matters most? If not, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I haven’t done a better job explaining it. I’m sorry you have failed to see what is in front of you. I’m sorry you are unhappily pursuing what you think matters, but not what matters most.

So what does matter most? I’ll tell you what I have discovered. What matters most is life. Specifically, you ask? It’s the moment. Each and every one of them. The billions upon trillions of moments that make us who we are. Happy. Sad. Hope. Sorrow. They are filled with love and heartbreak. With each and every one of the aforementioned, or with none of them. For happiness is inside you and all around you. It’s up to you to choose what makes you happy and what matters most. 

For moments are what make us who we are. In a moment an idea is born. In a moment life is conceived. In a moment love is found and never let go of. In a moment a person realizes their value and self worth. In a moment two people on opposite sides of the planet share a common thought of change and act on it. In a moment the last rays of sun fill the sky with the most vibrant, beautiful colors. 

What matters most? It is the moment. So how will you respond to it? How will you react to bad situation? Will you fall apart? How about a good one? Will you remain humble? Are you willing to forgive a mistake, to set aside past hate, to forgive the unforgivable, in order to reconnect with a long lost someone with whom you once shared happiness? Or courageous enough take the time to develop something new and fresh? Moments can be scary, moments can be difficult. Don’t be afraid of the unknown. Don't be too proud to pass up a good thing. Don't be too quick to succumb to the bad. For the easiest things aren't always the best. But the best things in life are fundamentally free...love, happiness, peace.

No matter what happens in your life, one thing is constant, and that is you. You are the one making the choices for yourself. You are the one who decides where a moment leads to. Do not sweat the small stuff, but also, know that we are sum of our parts just as though we are a sum of our moments. Good breeds good, bad breeds bad. We choose who we are. We choose who we want to be. We choose what matters most.

So as you walk through your life and think about your future and what matters most to you, I propose this. Live to be happy. Find what makes you happy and choose that. Cherish those moments when you have them. And when they leave, take comfort in the fact that you will find them again. For eventually, like magnetism, what you seek will be drawn to you and you to it. Whether it is in your creativity, the time spent with someone special, helping the less fortunate, or realizing a dream come true...

Love those moments and when you do you will find love. 

You will find peace. 

And you will find happiness.

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The end. Like most of my works, I didn't intend to put it out there, but I figure why not? As I mentioned above, I hope you can take something from this, even if it is something small. 

If you have any questions/comments/concerns/criticisms, please do share, public or private, I'd love to hear what you think. 

Thanks for reading.

-Me