The Life We Choose to Live

I recognize how often I get on the topic of people, and how fascinating it is how we interact with one another, and how our moods and our emotions can effect how relevant or meaningful something might be.

Do you remember being a kid, and sometimes up through your early twenties when everything seemed so important? If something negative, or unwanted, or hurtful, or ambiguous happened and it felt like the end of the world. But, it did, veritably, feel like the end of the world: emotionally and intellectually, the feeling would be utterly consuming.

And then you get older, and the same things don’t feel so important because other things have replaced them, and we’ve trained ourselves to prioritize—we’ve come to recognize and accept what we will choose to be consumed about. These things, however, still feel exceptionally important to us—and I would be remiss to point out that with the exception of the oppressive worry we feel for our children, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

And then we get even older, and we have again trained ourselves to prioritize, and to recognize that we have spent the better part of our lives being conducted by our various and unsteady feelings of foolishness.

The things we didn’t say and the things we didn’t do; the life that we didn’t live or the chances that we didn’t take because of an immediate sense of consuming urgency: fear, doubt, confusion, what-if?, obligation...our seemingly steadfast designs that matter less and less when we near the end of our lives, when we start to wonder why we didn’t spend our entire lives just...living, being happy—listening to our hearts.

What we could have been doing from the beginning was learning how to let people in: and then letting people in, enjoying their company, enjoying our own company, making mistakes, forgiving, saying how we feel, not really needing reasons or excuses, just being completely open, because why the hell not? It's worth figuring out who you are and loving as profoundly as you are able in whatever way you are able, and doing so with as much intention and understanding as you are able. 

How often do we hear the wisest of us telling us that they don’t know, “Why I didn’t, just, say that...” “Why I couldn’t, just, do that...” “Why I couldn’t, just, be that...”

And yet, most of us, are still holding so tightly to that feeling that it’s the end of the world, because, in all honesty, it takes us—nearly—our entire lives to let that go. We don’t want to feel like we’re making a mistake, we don’t want to feel like we’re doing something wrong, and it seems so important in the moment that we end up giving away so much of our lives to worry and to a feeling of emotional debt.

I’m thirty-five, and I don’t want to do that. I mean, do you really want to do that?

I have offered my life to worry, on and off and I have offered my life to well-being, on and off and I choose well-being, and regardless of what some people might have you believe God does want us to choose well-being, to follow our bliss. It is considerably more difficult to follow your bliss than it is not, otherwise the things that once felt so important wouldn’t lose their meaning, and we wouldn’t spend the remainder of our only life (whether you’re a believer of reincarnation or not you do only get one chance to live this life) wondering.

Those that are truly content with their lives lived honestly, and passionately, and devoutly; they acknowledge their faults and the lessons they learned from them; they acknowledge the work they did and their accomplishments, nobly; and they stand by the life they lived and they chances they took, resolutely.

You may lose people in your life for being honest and for being open and it may cost you things that once seemed or felt important and it won't feel easy, but the people and the life that you will gain are far more rewarding, and once you've taken this path and traversed the obstacles gathered, and lingering from your past the path will present itself to you unwaveringly, as if God were meaningfully and directly guiding you along the way.