Choose life

You had that dream again. The one where you fall. This time it really freaked you out! After you open your eyes your body hits the ground. Yip, after! You stare up at the underside of your bed. Your first thought is that it’s dusty. Your second though –which followed rather quickly- is that you need to see a shrink if your first thought after falling through your bed is… “It’s dusty”!

You’ve always been one of the cleverest bloggers in all the lands, so you quickly figure out what’s going on. You’re in the matrix! By the way, do you have the number of a good shrink? Anyway, you go outside to test your theory. This should be good! You think about Animatrix, and that guy who ran the 100m in 7 seconds. So you start running as fast as you can. It honestly doesn’t seem that fast. Maybe the machines fixed that bug after they watched Animatrix. Then you realize you were asleep when it happened. Perhaps you need to let your mind go (if you still have it). While running, you close your eyes and throw off all the shackles of this world. Could it actually be working? You feel like you’re running faster and faster each second. It feels amazing… until you run flat into a wall. Figures!

When you regain consciousness, you’re greeted with hysterical laughter. Your head is throbbing and you’re well embarrassed. But you need to know if it worked “Was I going really fast?” They burst out in newly invigorating laughter. You get up, dust yourself off and walk away from your most embarrassing moment to date. “I didn’t really get hurt? I ran into a wall… at really high speed!” Your eyebrows rise in tow as you say really. “I should be in the hospital now. This might not be the matrix, but there’s something special about me today.”

You drive down to the coast. You’re going to settle this one way or another. You’re searching for a huge vertical cliff next to the ocean. You’re going to jump off. Yip! The scary thing is, you’ve actually thought about this… and yet you’re still doing it. You stop the car, jump out and just start running. You’ve found what you’re looking for. There’s no stopping you now. You run as fast as you can. This time it looks rather impressive. You’re fast. Actually you look damn impressive! Especially for someone who ran into a wall not too long ago. You’re running so fast it seems your clothes can’t keep up with you. You exhale a peaceful breath as you take your final step. As your foot thrusts off the edge you close your eyes and spread your arms. Not too far away there’s a bystander witnessing the most surreal scene. It seems you’re gliding through the air as your body tilts backwards. From a distance you’re slowly moving further and further away from the cliff, and higher into the sky. It seems like some hidden force gently embraces you as your body comes to a standstill. In mid-air!

It’s like heaven has a tractor beam holding you in thin air. The sun pierces the clouds to line your body with a gentle golden glitter. It feels like the rays warm your body from the inside. You could stay in this peaceful bliss forever. That is until something brushes up against you. You open your eyes. A black shadow shoots through your body. You lose consciousness and you fall from the sky like the apple that invented gravity.

You wake up in a small dingy basement. It seems someone rescued you from drowning. “You discovered the rift in reality. The shadows want to kill you to stop you from tearing it”. The man stretches out his hands in front of him. In each hand there is a small pill.

“Oh snap! It really is like the matrix!” Your words are greeted with a raised eyebrow and a rather distained stare. You can almost see the words escaping his mouth: “We are not amused”. You want to ask him who’s this “we” but then you realize that he didn’t actually say anything. You just imagined he did. You swallow your smile. At least you were amused, if only for a while. “If you pick the blue pill, you forget everything. The shadows will leave you alone. You’ll be completely ignorant, but happy. If you pick the red, your life will never be the same, but it’ll be real for the first time.”

“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life.”

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What if life was like that? What if you had to make a choice today that will stick forever? You can either chase every temporary high, be oblivious, but fairly happy. Or you can walk a difficult path, but a real one, every step of the way.

What would you choose?