What's your Attitude to Life?

"I feel so happy to be alive. I feel happier if I'm living everyday to the fullest.  You could die tomorrow, so just live.  That makes me feel freer and happier. The funny thing about having children is that now I'm twice as motivated to do a cool stunt because my kids will like it. The worst that could happen is that I have an injury but I am still free. " 
- Angelina Jolie in an interview about her movie Salt with News of the World, 15 Aug 2010.

Granted, the News of the World is not the best newspapers in UK, but this quotation from the interview certainly caught my eye.  This philosophy is akin to what I myself believe, though I would say my risk tolerance is a lot lower than Jolie - I would certainly not think that the worst that can happen to me if I do a dangerous stunt is to have an injury; one could certainly die!  I am quite aware of my mortality :)


But one can certainly take a page from Jolie's words. Given that I am more or less a pagan and not sure if I believe in reincarnation or life after death, the words "we live only once" ring especially true for me.  For me then, every experience in life is precious and valuable in itself. And I try to stretch myself as much as I can in everything, as long as it does not cost me my life, limb or sanity.



But most of all, this approach has made me feel alive. Alive because I did not waste a single moment of my life, nor waste a single emotion. Alive because I have tried to embrace every new experience even if in the end, the outcome has been short of satisfactory. Of course, there have been stumbles, and there will be disappointments, but one does learn and reflect and move on with a newfound wisdom.

There have been days, when I have packed my day full of activities and pushed myself to be open-minded and try new experiences to the extent that I am physically exhausted and emotionally burnt out. But nevertheless, when I look back, I have no regrets and even if I cannot remember every exact detail, I do know that it has been a wonderful blur of events that has packed my existence with meaning and given me much satisfaction. 


Yet, paradoxically, I am painfully aware that I am not there totally, all the way.  I am not as adventurous as I would have myself believe. At the end of the day, no matter how much I think I am open-minded and free, there are inhibitions that I cannot break free of, reservations that I cannot shed. And that stops me from embracing the attitude of living life with total abandon.

This is every man's Achilles' heel.  And behind it lies this - the inability to be unapologetically oneself. 

This is the one thing that we can learn from Miss Jolie - to be comfortable in one's skin and not feel the need to explain oneself to anybody. Be it in real life or reel life (think about Lara Croft, Mrs Smith, Assassin Fox and Evelyn Salt), Jolie has lived the way she wants to.  Except that I would add the qualifier that one should be careful not to hurt others in one's actions. For certainly, I can't say Jolie is right in all her actions or conduct, but when one only lives once, I can only say one may choose to live by one's terms, but be ready to face the consequences.

And as I ponder this rather philosophical piece, I wonder how I shall guide Baby through these complex intricacies of life.  After all, I am nowhere nearer to self-mastery in my ripe mid-thirties! The job of child-rearing weighs heavily, but I think I can only leave Baby with these words for now... a personal favourite quotation that I came across. 

"Look, I don't want to wax philosophical, but I will say that if you're alive you've got to flap your arms and legs, you've got to jump around a lot, for life is the very opposite of death, and therefore you must at the very least think noisy and colorfully, or you're not alive."
- Mel Brooks  

And with a mother's faith, I know Baby will find his own wisdom as he navigates Life's multifaceted delights and treacherous falls, and that he will emerge the stronger for it.