Let’s play a game.
It’s like a friendlier version of devil’s advocate that I like to call curious contrarian.
Have you ever asked yourself, “What do I accept as absolute truth that might not be so?”
If you have, then you are in good company. Because I find my life automatically improves every time I ask it. Let’s see if it can do the same for you.
One of those “truths” I’ve been questioning lately is: Life is short.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard one of the following:
“Life is short; enjoy each moment.”
“Time is the most precious resource we have.”
“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
Some variation of these instagram-worthy captions were fed to me by my grandparents every Sunday during family lunch.
I can hear my grandpa’s voice now, “Arman, you are going to wake up one day with a head full of gray hair and wonder, where did all that time go?” I would half nod my head like the obedient grandson I was supposed to be. But I was more focused on devouring the food grandma prepared. If you have ever had the pleasure of a home cooked persian feast, you will understand.
But one surprising event forced me to go against this grain.
Storytime
I remember mom telling my seven-year-old self that I didn’t have to go to school tomorrow. “Say no more mother, I approve.”
So I woke up the following day with a twinkle in my eye that normally only sparkles on Christmas morning. But as soon as I walked downstairs mom said, “No breakfast today. We’ve got to go.”
As soon as we walked in the door of our destination, each individual hair inside my nose was attacked by a rotten egg stench. “Are teeth supposed to smell like that?” I wondered. That twinkle in my eye vanished like a firefly in the night.
Mom assured me, “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be in and out of here in an hour.” But before she could finish, I was abruptly taken back to a room covered in wallpaper that was only supposed to exist in my grandparents powder room.
For the next hour, my teeth were viciously attacked by a madman wielding medieval tools. Each second of that hour felt like an eternity. Why was time inching by so slowly? I thought one hour of school was long but this was something else entirely. Every sense was on hyper alert. The bright lights shining in my eyes. The sound of my teeth crunching while being chiseled. The smell of fluoride penetrating my nose. The feeling of water being shot between my gums. I didn’t know it at the time but this was what it’s like to be fully present.
The crazed man continued to pull out new and scarier looking tools. Just when I thought he was done, after six filled cavities, he came back for a seventh. Oh the horror!
I stumbled out of the room, mouth still numb from novocaine, and reluctantly accepted my prize for surviving: a free toothbrush. Perhaps Skittles and Coke weren’t the best after-school snack after all? You were right mom.
To my utter disbelief, mom was handing these evil people money. Did she not realize the trauma I just endured?
I later discovered that this madman is commonly referred to as a dentist.
Nothing was the same
That was the first time I realized I had been lied to my whole life….
If that was really only one hour then I had to wonder, “Is life actually short?”
“Absolutely not.” I concluded.
The exact opposite seemed to be true: Life is not short. In fact, it’s really freaking long when you are fully present.
Read those last five words again.
It makes me think that everyone who told us this universal lie was actually just admitting they didn’t live in the present moment enough.
Life feels short because we spend so much of it on autopilot. Wake up, Work, Eat, Work more, Go home, Eat, watch Netflix, Sleep, and Repeat ad infinitum.
I found this out the hard way. Who knew one dental appointment could become my greatest teacher.
Let’s say you live for 75 years. The equivalent of 657,000 dentist appointments. That’s a lot of potential present moments. How much longer would life feel if you were fully present for all of them?
It reminds me of the ancient stoic philosopher Seneca who said: “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”
I realized that most of us like to make claims about life instead of actually LIVING.
Thank you for playing curious contrarian with me. You don’t have to completely agree with me. In fact, I hope you don’t. But I do hope I encourage you to turn off that auto pilot switch every once in a while.
“The autopilot life is not worth living.” - What Socrates meant to say
So let me ask you: Could you be living a more present life?
This is such a great story, Arman! Well done.
Fantastic read. Enjoyed it very much. :)