Akira and the Sun

"Akira, my beloved, why do you look so restless?", asked the wise old sage. 

"I feel all over the place... unsure, unsatisfied.", said the worried Akira.

"Is that so? And what is it that you feel unsure about?", prompted the sage gently. 

"It's just... I've been searching for the purpose of my life for the longest time. Sometimes I feel like I'm almost there, but then I realize I'm far off. I pray to God day and night to give me the answers of my questions. I almost feel obsessed looking so deeply into things to find the smallest of signs that can possibly explain my existence. But I fail, I fail every time. It makes me sad, you know?", confessed Akira. 

"I know. Tell me Akira, what else do you do in your day? How do you feed yourself?", interrogated the sage further.

"I don't. I don't do anything else. I spend my whole day thinking and wondering when I will find the meaning of my life.", said Akira.

"Very well," said the sage, "let me help you. Look at the Sun for a minute."

Akira complied.

As the minute was up, the sage asked Akira to look away from the Sun and point to where he was standing.

"I don't know where to point," Akira exclaimed, "I can't see you! The Sun's brightness seems to have blinded me!"

To this, the sage finally revealed: 

"My dear Akira, the man who looks at the Sun all day long, will only end up being blind. Looking at the Sun all day will not gift you its light. To earn its light, you must fulfill your daily responsibilities. Living every moment fully is the only way you can get closer to your goal each day!"

_ _ _ _

The sage is so right. In looking at the Sun all day, we blind ourselves and lose our own light. Thinking all day about our endless desires, be they love, money or fame, we end up losing ourselves only to realize that we are going further and further away from our goals each day. As they say, "a watched phone never rings".

So what should we do? Stop dreaming, stop desiring? Not at all. We are bound to dream and desire, but it's the losing of self that we should learn to keep away from in dreaming and desiring. We can only reach our destination if our journey is well planned and fully lived. Else we'd be stuck in our journey, losing our way at every crossroad and possibly running behind mirages that never existed...