For others.
If I could summarize my life in two words, that would be it.
When I was young, my strict and traditional parents stopped me from playing with friends to study. And so, I studied for my parents.
After university, right after I found my first job, my parents found the ‘best’ marriage partner for me. Yes, this was still a time when parents would do that, and when marriage was still a thing, unlike the joke it has become today. And so, I married her for my parents, yet again.
For the first few years of marriage, I tried my best to get to know my wife. I realized that she was a good person. I respected her, and maybe even liked her, but I never loved her. And I could tell it was the same on her side. Nevertheless, I tried my best to be a decent husband, and so I lived those years for her.
Thanks to a great education, I had a good, stable job at a large company with a decent salary. Nothing stopped us from buying a house and having children. Everyone told me, my parents and my in-laws included, that marriage was happiness, and that children were the greatest thing that would happen to me. They weren’t. However, I had my duty as a husband and as a father. I dedicated the next forty years to my work, to sustain my family, and to my children, to give them everything they could ever need.
In the end, it was only when I finally retired, had a little leeway for the first time, and looked back on my life that I noticed the truth. I had spent my whole life for others. My youth and my marriage for my parents, my honeymoon years for my wife, and my middle-aged years for my work and my children.
Still, people wanted more of me. Don’t relax, they whispered. You’ll only get bored and die earlier. Take care of your grandchildren. Volunteer. With your experience in life and wealth, surely you can help so many people. And I did. But even so, I had a little free time left, which I initially didn’t know what to do with. I realized I didn’t have any hobbies or passions. I never had the time for any of that.
I wanted to at least travel, see the world I never could before. However, my body, old and broken from a life of work, creaked and clanked if I moved around too much. It was asking me for a respite, a well-needed and deserved rest.
I agreed, thinking I could rest for a year or two, and travel later. That later never came. I died from natural causes soon after, leaving this world forever.
Yet, for some reason, my consciousness didn't disappear like I thought it would, nor did it go to some of the many places imagined by the diverse religions. Instead, I found myself in a strange prison, which allowed me almost no movement. I felt neither cold nor warmth, hunger, thirst, or much of anything, for that matter. I also couldn’t see, despite trying with all my might. Yet, I felt strangely safe, as if the jail was made to guard me from harm.
It took me some time to speculate on my situation. There were some clues. I sometimes heard sounds that seemed like extremely muffled and distorted voices, coming from outside my prison. There were movements, too, not initiated by me, but as if the whole cell displaced itself.
It was a far-fetched idea and a weird possibility, but my conclusion was that… I might be a fetus inside a woman’s belly. That idea had come from the few books I had managed to read during my short retirement, when I was looking for a hobby. One of them had a story about reincarnation, which was getting popular by the time I was old, in a very changed world from the one I knew in my youth. Otherwise, I probably never would have reached such a verdict by myself.
Even if this idea was very far-fetched and unscientific, I couldn’t help entertaining it. It wasn’t like I had much else to do, anyway, and this was the most thrilling thought about my current condition. All other concepts were too dark for my taste.
If I had another chance at life, what then? I looked back at my first one. Dull. It could yet again be summarized with this single word. For a time, watching other couples around me, I had resented my parents. Why had they forced me to marry someone I didn’t love? Wouldn’t my life have been so much better if I hadn’t listened to them? Look at how happy all the other men are.
That thought didn’t last long. I swiftly learned that feelings were unreliable and volatile. The couples that couldn’t stay away from each other, kissing in public and making love every night in their home? They were now shouting at each other, throwing furniture, breaking up, divorcing, fighting over children’s custody, becoming crazy about money.
Does that mean my parents were right, after all? Not really. Were a few years of passion worth a life destroyed for decades, shared custody of children, feelings and self-confidence never to be found again? Some would say yes. Others no. As for me? I didn’t know. I hadn’t experienced the other side, and I was no philosopher. It wasn't a question I could answer.
That wasn’t all. When I was young, those statistics weren’t really revealed, too shameful they were. But with the Internet, nothing could stay hidden anymore. The percentage of people cheating on their partners was simply mind-blowing. I couldn’t help asking myself, what about my wife? Now, I know this is extremely disrespectful to her. She was a good person, and she had always treated me well. However, what about me? Was I a good husband in her eyes? Hard to say. Could a dull person such as me be considered such? On top of that, she was a housewife all her life. Anything could have happened during those long days I was at work, the one she had never loved, when she felt lonely and in need of some passion herself. And I wouldn’t have known any better.
Of course, this is all speculation. It is just my imagination going wild, having nothing else to do in my prison. However, all these thoughts had an ultimate focal point. If I really had another chance at life, would I live it the same as the previous one?
Never. At the very least, I wouldn’t live for others anymore. If I lived again, it would absolutely be…
For myself.