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The Ghost of Christmas Now



This season of Christmas, a whole lot of us tend to feel reflective about our lives. There’s something about this season that makes us look into ourselves; to wonder about what we hold dear and treasure in our lives. To think back on past years, sifting through forgotten photographs and remembering loved ones, we tend to feel a bit overwhelmed by the season that sometimes, we wish that we could go back to a certain time in our lives. 

Do you do that? Don’t you ever wonder why the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future won’t visit you this time? Do you ever find yourself wishing that you could go back or forward to a certain time? Let’s just say that we do have the chance to do so; to be the updated version of Ebenezer Scrooge? Where and when will we go?

The Ghost of Christmas Past would take me to my childhood where I would be innocently happy to the ways of the world. But whenever I try to think about my early childhood, only a few memories come to mind! Maybe my childhood, although it is important to building my character, was overlooked most of the time. It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy; it was just that I was the kind of kid who couldn’t wait to grow up, to get a job. I wouldn’t want to go to this time.

The Ghost of Christmas Future would take me to where I will be twenty to thirty years from now. Let’s say that I might have a job in a corporation, with a wife, a job and a couple of kids. I might own a house and a car, and have a bank account enough to sustain my family. But how do I get there? What kind of adventurer would rather skip the hard part, and go directly to the destination? I’d rather enjoy the ride going to where my future is. So I wouldn’t want to go to this time.

That leaves the Ghost of Christmas present! Although I might not be the rich and successful man, or too innocent to know what life’s problems really means, there’s just something about the now that I wouldn’t trade for the world. Although we might like the idea of going back in time to change the way we live our lives, and even if the idea of skipping to the ending where everything is comfortable might be appealing, it would feel like we were cheated out of our lives. I guess what we truly see when we sift through photographs and memories is not the missed choices we made or the sadness that fills our hearts when we think about loved one’s departed, it is the solemnity that surrounds the truth that we only have one life to live and this is where we are now.

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