I was listening to a podcast today, and they had a person on talking about the unique experience of visiting a city as a pilot. But the exact conversation isn't that important (though I did put a hold on his book from my library).
To me, hearing a story like this always fills me with a sort of quiet despair. Now, I would love to be a pilot, to learn to fly a plane, maybe one day work for an airline. I never will, though. That's not just pessimism: between my various medical conditions, I'll likely never get even the basic license. That path is closed to me and I can't help but look on with melancholy.
There's a lot of this in my life. I'm assaulted on all sides by the beautiful veneer of someone else's life, roads closed off to me by a thousand choices I made and a thousand I never got to. I'll never be a pilot, I'll never speak Japanese, I'll never live in China or Antarctica or Saint Helena.
But I've decided, today, that feeling despair at these closed paths is a decision I've made, and I'm not going to do it anymore. As best I can, I want to feel joy that I live in age where I can hear so many stories. That I am exposed to even of fraction of the depth and breadth of human experience. I want to smile when I see something I'll never do, and rejoice that there are people out there doing it and sharing it with me.
I choose to replace envy for empathy, to feel joyful instead of covetous. I do this intentionally, because I want to be a more hopeful person.
