You Only Live Once

The Wisdom of Insecurity

Photo by Joshua Clements

Sitting in a political philosophy class in college, my professor noticed many students on their phones, texting or surfing social media. We then took a detour from Plato and Aristotle for the rest of the period.

Instead of political theory, we discussed something more permanent, yet forever fleeting.

That class was the first time I heard of Alan Watts. The professor read from Watts’ The Wisdom of Insecurity. Watts wrote,

“If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.”

How often do you check your watch or calendar for what’s next? You can’t wait until the next session at the gym or weekend outing with friends.

Or perhaps you think, “Man, it’s only Monday. I can’t wait until Friday.”

In doing so, we run the risk of wasting our lives, as Watts suggests, “chasing a will-o’-the-wisp.”

The idea of the ever-escaping sands of time was around long before smartphones and Snapchat.