Insight: the Death of Ivan Ilych Essay

I’m young and filled with dreams. Dreams that sometimes obscure the truths I have to face. Dreams that are like morphine that departs us from reality. But what’s really ironic with most of our dreams is that it’s not from us but from the society, the society dictates our dreams, what the society thinks is best for us is the thing we dream to be even if sometimes it does not correspond our beliefs and values, at least, for me. I am a victim of this notorious dictator worse than any dictator who have altered the course of the world. I realized that most of my dreams are not my dreams but the society’s. I see myself in the character of the young Ivan Ilych who is filled with dreams, complacent, and seems to be sure of the future. Together with my dreams is a deep and blind veneration to people who have made great achievements in the field I’m trying to pursue. Society, dreams, and influential people, these are things that sometimes keep us from realizi ng and seeing the truths in life or maybe we know them, but just deny them to tolerate our blind dreaming and living. Dreaming is part of living but living shouldn’t be boxed by this dreaming. When was the last time we or I paused to think, introspect, and contemplate about the things happening in our life, about the paths we are taking, and the decisions we are making. I like how Socrates puts it â€Å"An unexamined life is life not worth living†, truth is we know where to go and we know what we do but more often than not we don’t know why, especially to us, the youth. Most of us live according to what the society or the public tells us even if it’s not what we know we ought to do, I like how an anonymous guy puts it â€Å"We never grow up, we just learn how to act in public†, I believe it is because most of us lacks purpose in life or maybe we have but it is a very mundane one. Indeed, most of us are entangled with the vines of society with venoms that turns us to heartless machines and eventually kills us leaving us with regrets and extreme unhappiness, this is very evident in the life of Ivan Ilych who lived a life with almost nothing but hypocrisy trying to build a strong position in the society through accumulating more wealth, blindly enjoying his luxuries in life and yet he never experienced true love and happiness. I have heard the saying â€Å"life is short† countless of times but until now I still fail to imbibe this gospel truth. Death is an inevitable thing here on earth, all good things even the bad must come to an end but we fail to realize this because of all the worldly things that keeps us busy and departed from what is real, true, and important. Dreams are good but a dream in consonance with reality, with your belief and values, with what our conscience dictates to be good, and what love tells us to pursue is the best dream that would lead us to a life beyond what we have dreamed of. One truth is that we just don’t have enough time to actualize all of our dreams but I believe it is still important that we dream for it is the thing that keeps us moving and when the time comes where the truth of death is almost sinking in in our consciousness, when we see that soon this life is about to end, we of course do not want to end up like Ivan Ilych who just realized how wasted his life has been, we do not want to see people around us being indifferent about our imminent death especially our family, and we do not want of course that at the time where we’re already withering due to our illness or due to aging and we now don’t have even an iota of energy to say â€Å"sorry† or â€Å"I love you†. Will we wait till we’re lying at our death beds and we can’t do anything now to make this life a little better before we decide to pause and introspect and contemplate how we are living? Let us ask ourselves, if I die now, are the things happening are really the things that would leave me content and happy? Now, if not let’s have the courage to pay off all the sacrifices and the hard work in order to rearrange and make this life we are living better. Let’s be in-charge of our lives and keep the dictations of the society out of our minds. Life is short, let us love and live OUR dream.