There are few things in my experience which feel closer to life than a one-way ticket. In the days prior, there is nothing of real substance to hold on to. Small moments of excitement, maybe. But, moreso the quiet routine of completing otherwise mundane tasks fills the time - taxes, job applications, and flossing. I've come to believe reflection only really happens in transition momentes in life. Times when one is willing to give something up to make space for something new. The analogy I tell myself is of the man who creates 1,000 reason why he should do something instead of following through with the thought. The truth being, he has no real interest in the idea in the first place.
Sitting here, packing my bags with this one-way to Hong Kong, I recall not the memory, but the sequence of events the first time I had a bought a ticket somewhere with no plans on how to get back. The sequence proceeds as follows - sleeping under my office desk to finish the last project for my Masters degree, attending the company holiday party, drinking a bit too much at the holiday party in preparation for a hockey game, crashing on my friend's couch after buying the worst pomelo I've ever consumed. It was 30 straight hours of a wonderful time to cap-off a year and a half of a lot of time spent with no regrets. I'd quite frankly do it again.
What I admire most in people and my friends, are the "How" and "Why" in their life. In esssence it comes down to, "Really well" and "Because I want to". It is hard for me not to see this as the underlying template of time well spent and a life fully lived. The only true regret is not having found out for yourself. There has long been a line in opening of Meditations which never made sense to me. Marcus Aurelius tell himself to, "Throw away your books". Immediately one sees how this is antithetical to the reader's goal of reading about wisdom. But perhaps this was the point all along, to not deceive oneself from experience with the illusion of knowledge.
-Warren