05 Apr I do not exist to impress the world (RICHARD BACH)
“Richard, how can you hope to impress the world when everybody else works for their living and you run around all irresponsible from day to day in your crazy biplane, selling passenger rides?”
He was testing me again. “There’s a question you are gonna get more than once.”
“Well, Donald, Part One: I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy.”
“OK. Part Two?”
“Part Two: Everybody else is free to do whatever they feel like doing, for a living. Part Three: Responsible is Able to Respond, able to answer for the way we choose to live. There’s only one person we have to answer to, of course, and that is…?”
“… ourselves,” Don said, replying for the imaginary crowd of seekers sitting around.
“We don’t even have to answer to ourselves, if we don’t feel like it… there’s nothing wrong with being irresponsible. But most of us find it more interesting to know why we act as we do, why we make our choices just so – whether we choose to watch a bird or step on an ant or work for money at something we’d rather not be doing.” I winced a little. “Is that too long an answer?”
He nodded. “Way too long.”
“OK…. How do you hope to impress the world…” I rolled out from under the plane and rested for a while in the shade of the wings. “How about I allow the world to live as it chooses, and I allow me to live as I choose.”
He threw a happy proud smile at me: “Spoken like a true messiah! Simple, direct, quotable, and it doesn’t answer the question unless somebody takes the time to think carefully about it.”
ILLUSIONS
Richard Bach
