Are you living your life or just merely existing in it? What’s the difference? I have periods I am most definitely up in the clouds, watching myself from above as I run from task to task. I hear the alarm and feel the push of life against my back, forcing me into a mad rush to get through the workday. Is that living or is that simply existing? It’s existing if all your responsibilities are controlling you, rather than you having the freedom and authority to direct your day and what it consists of.
I have a couple of moments during my day I enjoy something I’m doing, but I’m usually rushing through the moment or activity, because of alarm clocks leering at me and bedtime teasing with my energy. Obviously that can put a damper on those special moments or hobbies. If you wake up every day and the alarm goes off without you feeling grateful for another day, does that mean your depressed, or perhaps you have just become swallowed by the busyness of this life? It can consume us if we let it. Yes, we all need to be adults and we all have responsibilities, bills, obligations to people to be “on our game” for. How do you find the balance of truly LIVING your life and not just existing each day as the world passes you by?
It’s as if we’re captive to a high-speed train, desperate to get off, but everything is moving much too fast to find a landing place, much less assessing a moment that we can leap off. Should we just go for it, duck and roll and hope all works out? What does LIVING your life equate to you? Is it traveling? Making time for your hobbies or things your passionate about? Spending more time with friends or family? Or simply, living in the moment? Is it too risky to just go for it? To make the choice to jump off the moving train and see what happens? Risks are usually worth it if there is a small snippet of desire encompassed within the risk. I struggle finding time to contemplate the risk, much less take it. That in itself hits me in the gut at times, and I realize life is sweeping me up into the corner with the dust and dog hair. I don’t want to get lost in this pile of “necessaries”, only to look back at my life when I’m old and feel like I didn’t take the chances I always longed for.
Living is sharing a life of special moments, making memories and exploring a world not yet discovered…at least for me. Live your life now…save the existing for later (like when you’re too old to move and just want to yell at the neighborhood kids on your lawn). Go live.
