Death is not the greatest loss in life—the greatest loss is when we are already dead when we are alive.  If you don’t have goals and things to pursue the only difference between you and a dead person is that you are moving.  This one hit me hard.  I’ve written on a similar topic, discussing how living the same day on repeat for 90 years isn’t a life.  But putting the motions in context struck me differently.  We only get one shot at this life and I know I don’t want to continue doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for some relieve on the weekends.  I truly do want a life of adventure, and excitement, and freedom.  I’m not talking extreme stuff, I’m just talking about living my life the way I want to live it, doing the things that bring me joy.  If we have to suffer through the entire week and wish for the weekend, chances are we aren’t spending enough time in joy.

I’m seeing that there are many people so comfortable or so conditioned with the traditional view of how we are “supposed” to live that they honestly believe they are happy.  Life doesn’t merely exist in the hours after a 9-5 (or whatever hours you work).  Life is every moment of our days—how many of those moments are spent doing things we don’t want to?  I’m not knocking those who have found joy, challenge, or purpose in that environment—it’s entirely personal.  But for others there is a freedom that needs to be expressed outside of a cubicle between 9-5 M-F.  If we feel suffocated in doing what we’re doing, then we need to start asking some other questions.  Dig deeper and find what really drives us, find what brings joy and spend more time doing that.  Joy is often the biggest indicator of where we need to go.

I don’t want to spread fear, I want to spread a different way of thinking.  I want to encourage us to tap into the full possibility of life.  I want us to take it for what it is and love every moment of it.  I’m not talking about shooting for perfection or curating life, I’m talking about tapping into the universal flow of life and understanding the flows.  I want us to celebrate our lives instead of mourning them while we are here.  While time may be infinite, we have a short blip of it here and, if we are blessed to wake up another day, then it’s time to find joy in that.  Live.  Really live, and don’t look back with regret.  Simply take it and make it what it can be through understanding the infinite amount of choices we can make. Choose life.