To be or not to be, that is the question

Today the famous opening phrase of act three, scene one of Shakespeare's famous Hamlet plagued me. I'm not saying I was considering "being" or "not being" literally...just that the opening phrase could be applied to many life scenarios.

To be an HR Manager or to be a Seamstress. That was an interesting question I was faced with a few years ago...luckily I chose to follow my crafty passion and become a full-time seamstress.

How many people choose "not to be" rather than "to be" and live to regret it? An interesting question.

Here's the soliloquy in it's entirety:

To be or not to be – that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep
No more – and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

Oh, and I got two more orders from stores this week! One is a new shop, The Bradley Gallery here in Stoughton. I am going to be sewing like a mad woman the next few weeks! (Don't I always say that? LOL)