What did you do today?

A common question we ask our dear ones or to our work colleagues at the end of the day. I usually tend to forget what I had thought yesterday to do today. I do make the best of an attempt to accomplish everything on a given day. However, at times am caught off guard by 'But you said you will do it today' remarks and to that humble response is, 'Yes, I intended to, but that can wait ' to save face.

When every gadget reminds us of birthdays, anniversaries, bill payments and all that, we have stopped paying attention as to what it is, we are to accomplish today. Every morning I am reminded by the diligent WhatApps msg from friends on how beautiful life is. How blessed we are to live and enjoy everything we take for granted. And I fail to carry on with that good thought even until lunchtime. Like most, immersed in work that brings joy, all the good thoughts are on hold by evening most of them are out of the window.

Most of us are now accustomed to the fast-paced life of the 21st century and at times, it feels odd to see someone loafing around doing nothing. I get guilty pangs if I leave work during office time to take pleasure, like many in activities like running or park walks. I Am reminded by those who do take time out that you work to make a better life.

Recently I read somewhere that the whole purpose of learning to read and write is to make a better living. That left a profound thought as to when I look around or beyond, everyone is well educated, earning enough to support daily needs but are they or I living any better?

I realized living well is not a state or goal to achieve but a continuous process and needs attention every day. It is to ensure each thought, action, word and overall lifestyle is improved every day. That sounds too philosophical to the techie in me and even crap to the younger folks.

It dawned upon me that a better life is what everyone wants from us at the cost of our time, attention, or even money. Personally, our loved ones want us to be healthy and happy always. Commercially, Amazon wants to sell each product on their site to us so the lucrative offers, Facebook and other news channel agencies want us to view, like and subscribe to their channel so they can make a fortune. Credit cards and banks want to entice us by buying now and pay later offers. Lastly, offices want us to work like robots.

In all this mess, we forget as to what it is that we want or aspire to do to make life better. Many restore to materialistic things like buying gadgets, bigger car, bigger house and there is nothing wrong with it. But what dismays me is we hardly enjoy or appreciate things, we worked so hard to get beyond a certain point. Often there is something else we aspire to have and life goes on until something like the pandemic hits us to bring back to square one. Tough times like these teach us a lot of what matters to us and what we need to drop.

Finally, glancing at my long to-do list am back to the question, What did I do today, if not anything else, at least did I live better?