Headlines and Deadlines

I OFTEN wonder if it's true that the more your hairline recedes, the clearer your thinking will be. Perhaps it's because when you had a headful of hair, you were too engrossed in looking after your locks, taking extremely good care of your crowning glory and in plain English, just vain.
In the twilight years, when the looks are no longer that important because the hair has seen better days, you begin to have more time to cultivate serious and more mature thoughts. In other words, you can think "clearer".
You no longer pay much heed on temporal stuff - the small stuff, if you know what I mean!
There's no fun in enjoying life if you don't know how to do it. It's okay to be silly and ridiculous once a while. When you are still a teenager, or on the threshold of adulthood, being reckless and sometimes dangerous is expected of you. Ah...they say, the hormones are on an overdrive.
However, when you are past middle age and you do something out of character, people tend to comment, "has that guy lost all his marbles?" Or even, I think premature senility has begun to set in.
Why do people say those things? My explanation is simple - they don't have the guts to do it themselves. I have for some time now pledged to myself that I will do all the "silly" things so long as they make me happy, have a good time and not break the law while doing them.
Age is not a factor in happiness. When you want to do adventurous stuff, just go ahead. Youth does not have a monopoly on doing anything. Anybody can do it. Follow the Nike motto - JUST DO IT!
On the other end of the personality spectrum is fulfilling your own ambitions. You often begin a new year or even early in the morning and tell yourself most sincerely that you just have to complete five tasks before the sun sets on the same day.
Then somehow during the hours of rushing in and out of your home, office and toilet, you miss two important assignments and you are left with the less-than-satisfactory feeling that you have not achieved your targets.
That's what deadlines are all about. These days because I have seen too many friends died in their prime, I pursued my missions of the day with a passion of a diehard mercenary. No work no pain kind of personal angst.
In fact, I often time myself on completing the tasks that I have assigned myself. Nine out of 10 times, I hit the bull's eye. In fact, I am trying to hit it on the head first time every time.
Life becomes less complicated and much smoother when all projects, tasks, assignments and other chores of the day are completed before your head hits the pillow at night.
This is one of the simplest things to accomplish - work that is assigned by others to you or jobs that you have given yourself. What's so difficult about doing it now and doing it like reflex action?
The problem starts when we develop an "allergy" towards completing things as if it is disease-related function. Most of us get easily distracted by gossip, coffee machine chit-chat and minding other people's business.
The downtime incurred at water machines and at minor detours on the way to a workstation can amount to several hours in a day. So the idea is to develop a kind of habit to complete it and get away with it as quickly as possible.
Journalists live by the maxim of headlines and deadlines. That credo has ruled the lives of many newsmen and women who didn't live long enough to enjoy their retirement benefits.
Life's more than a couple of personal obsessions. We need to overcome all the little hassles that seem to become an Everest because we allow them to become that way.
It has been said a million times - live as if you are going to die tomorrow. The problem is most of us are hard of hearing. We hear the words, we read the words but somehow its true meaning escape our attention. Why, I ask you.
Why does a person make a vow or vows just when he has been diagnosed with an incurable disease? Why wait till then? Live, live and live.
Every moment is THE moment. There's not time but NOW. Live it. That's how it was and still is intended to be. No need to plan to live like a millionaire. Enjoy life like a millionaire NOW.
This is the most beautiful world I know of because I have not been to Mars, Venus or any of the planets in our solar system. This is the most beautiful life I know of because I can't remember any of the previous lives that some people seem to be obsessed with.
So, here's a toast to life. May yours be as wonderful as mine.





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