Oh, the fragility of life

And the subsequent sweet urgency that comes with it!

One of my close friends was recently vacationing in Hollywood, California—visiting Santa Barbara and San Diego—when he suddenly had to witness the death of a fellow traveller-friend he had made along the way. The vacation was going alright until this happened. He was the one who found the person gasping for breath, and in his hands, the man took his final breaths. He called 911, the ER team arrived, administered various shock therapies, and for a few seconds, a pulse was registered. But eventually, the person succumbed. His breathing stopped altogether.

To witness something like this near the end of a trip, especially one that was going so serenely, shook him. He couldn’t sleep for the next few days. I naively laughed when he recounted the whole story over dinner, finding something absurdly comical about the situation. Of course, that was inappropriate. I quickly realized my foolishness and lack of emotional calibration in a moment that demanded seriousness and gravity.

But my friend didn’t get angry or upset. We both agreed that such incidents jolt us into seeing how fragile and, at times, how unreal this life is. The person we assume will be there tomorrow might vanish, like thin air, as if by magic.

After some pondering, I went back to my daily rhythm. But something shifted in my friend’s psyche. He began questioning the life he’d been living in the U.S., realizing it had been 25 years since he first landed in Manhattan. Life had moved more or less linearly: same kinds of jobs, same humdrum of corporate America. He had done well for himself—earned millions even. But something deeper had been stirred.

Meanwhile, I got busy with my gym and office routines, and lately, I’ve enjoyed my writing hours more than ever; not much has changed.

You know, there are times when you suddenly remember a friend or an old associate. I’ve always felt that way and made it a habit to send a message or call them when that feeling strikes. Most of my friends appreciate this trait; it keeps the connection alive. Not everyone gets it, but still—I try. A similar premonition nudged me again, and I called this friend two weeks after our dinner.

We exchanged greetings and started chatting. I could sense it—he was exhausted from figuring out the way ahead. This is a strange trait of mine: whenever I see someone down, something takes over me. It’s as if I generate an oracle-like aura, and suddenly I say the right words at the right time. That’s what happened here, too.

He couldn’t see the point of staying in the U.S. anymore. The way that person had died, a lonesome soliloquy troubled him deeply. He realized it could’ve easily been him.

But he didn’t want to move back to be near his family or old friends. No, not that. They can’t answer the fundamental question, the unreality and fragility of life. At best, they can soothe it but not solve it. What he wanted instead was time in the Himalayas - Uttarkashi, maybe or in the devotional lanes of Vrindavan. Alone. But he had no clue how to shift from his cushy Manhattan life to the raw chaos of India.

That’s when it hit me.

I told him: We carry this false idea that India is far. Sure, in absolute miles, they’re poles apart. But it’s just 15 hours from New York to Delhi. And the places you want to go? Just 24 hours away. That’s it.

I pushed hard “You could go to India and be back in 6 days. And if you time it with a long weekend, you could do this every month! There’s no need for a dramatic life change. Just take sharp, surgical steps. Do what you want to do. And once you do this a few times, a sudden seamlessness will emerge, a kind of invisible bridge between both worlds.”

It worked.

He was gripped with enthusiasm. I nudged him to talk to mutual friends for help with logistics and places to stay. And we hung up.

A week later, my mom is visiting, and I’m enjoying a delicious home-cooked meal. Everything feels normal again. I’ve started a group reading session for some of my favorite books. During today’s session, one of our common friends mentioned that this very friend, the one who witnessed death, is flying to the Himalayas next week. Tickets are booked. Plans are in motion!

I called him right after. He was jubilant. “All I needed was to book those tickets,” he said. “Everything else is falling into place.” He told me his incomplete itinerary, but he’s confident the gaps will resolve as he moves forward.

And this! This is precisely my mindset. I set my eyes on the essential. I make sure that’s taken care of. And then? I let the Universe fill in the rest. Seeing him embrace this way of thinking - chuckling, energized gave me real joy.

Sure, this mindset has its pitfalls. But its most significant strength is that it gets things started. You achieve what you set out to without losing sleep or getting paralyzed by the inertia of “too much planning.”

As he plans his journey, he’s lit with a sense of freedom and adventure - a freedom that was always his. No one in his office minds that he’s using his vacation days for they’re his.

But it took a reframing “India is only 24 hours away” to unlock this truth.

And now, he’s planning multiple such surgical trips to India’s spiritual heartland, hoping to find a taste of eternity. Watching him shift from despondency to clarity, with even a small contribution from my end, gave me a reason to pat myself on the back and to write this.

So, what’s stopping you from taking that next step?

Call a friend. Talk through your confusion. Maybe, like him, you’ll get an empowering reframe that turns your dilemma to dust. And before you know it, you’ll find yourself running outside—not necessarily naked—but shouting something along the lines of:

Eureka!