Acknowledgement: I am aware that by posting the following, I risk angering/offending certain individuals. Know that this is not directed at any specific person/persons. It is meant to be a catalyst to changing one's outlook, not to critique one's lifestyle or judge one by one's choices.
Today, between classes, I decided to give my mother a call and ask her if she would like to go out to lunch. We had a rendez-vous at Mitchell's about ten minutes later. It was an overall pleasant lunch, despite about five minutes of hostile bickering [this IS still my mother and myself, after all, and that's to be expected]. I love intellectual conversation, and my mother is always a good source for that. We spoke of the following topic for a bit, and I was inspired to post about it and elaborate a bit more on here.
Survival versus living.
Are you living? Or, are you just surviving?
The two are completely separate states of being.
Living is not necessarily blissful happiness.
Living is taking risks, loving, straying from the norms.
Living is deep appreciation of the little things.
As said in Vanilla Sky, "What is life without the pursuit of a dream?"
Living is the pursuit of a dream, of YOUR dreams, of your wildest fantasies as if all were possible or attainable simply by your own determination and making.
Existence is fleeting and time so precious.
So, why do people contentedly settle for mediocrity and waste so much time being so ordinary?
Why do people "give up" so easily?
How can you hear "no" once, and then walk away and figure that it'll never work out and it's not meant to be?
How can you even bear to take "no" for an answer?
When did you let your day job become your career?
When did you give up those dreams you once had?
Didn't you once dream of being something greater than this?!
Go back to school!
Apply for your dream job!
Also, those surviving among us often feel that if something is meant to be, it's going to come to them. It will be fated and occur regardless of their actions. This also could not be farther from the truth. The fates owe you no favors. You will continue to wait until your dying day.
Be brazen. Take the risk.
The surviving often waste so much time indulging in such ordinary pleasures as well. What could you be doing instead of 'partying'/drinking/doing drugs incessantly? [I will not put on the false pretense that I NEVER drink or never 'party,' however, it's in moderation, and as of late, has been a very seldom occurrence. I felt myself slipping into the pit of survival not that long ago, and I managed to pull myself out. [Survival is tempting, as it's easy, frivolous, fun. And, living's a real bitch, sometimes.]] There are so many provisions for the wasting of time in modern society. Calculate, roughly, this equation, if you can:
Time spent on Myspace/Facebook/any mindless website
+ Time spent watching television
+ Time spent playing video games [yes, Guitar Hero most definitely counts]
+ Time spent drinking/drunk/'partying'
+ Time spent shopping [whether for clothing, CDs, etc.]
= How much time you could have spent bettering your life and yourself this week.
I'm not saying that one should never have any leisure time by any means; that's a one-way ticket to rapid loss of sanity. But, how much leisure time does one need? Could this, perhaps, be a hindrance and a contributing factor to one's failure to live versus survive?
If you are truly content simply surviving, if you wake up in the morning fulfilled and are excited for the day to begin, if you are genuinely happy with normalcy and mediocrity, then more power to you.
I, for one, could never do/be that. I choose to live.
And, it would be lovely if you would join me.
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2 comments:
thank you for posting... I felt terrible today and was realizing all this but how no idea what to do about it. I keep hearing "there's more to living than being alive" and wondering if I'm really living and where to start. No one has ever laid it out where where I could understand so well. Jesus once said something about the foxes having their holes or birds having their nest, but the son of man having no place to rest his head. I really can't remember what he meant by that, but I am going to attempt living and the imagery will help me remember not just to let go and rest in easy pleasure, not drugs or anything but pleasures I use like drugs. This may be be the answer to what I've been searching for all day... actually I was much too tired to seek it out. So I did nothing at all today, I don't totally blame myself... I felt really tired physically too. Please hope/pray that I have enough determination to attempt living... and I shall join you. Once again thank you, because somehow this got through to me more than even Stephen Christian himself has.
Andrea,
You're welcome,
and thank YOU.
This means a great deal to me.
We are on to something.
The army of the living is gathering forces.
Forward, march.
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