Sunday, March 4, 2007

Choosing Life

"I see myself and all of those around me, walking in and out of our days, trying hard to figure out what to do with what we have- and how to do it to the best of our abilities, as the world continues spinning around us in a shaky but continuous course that seems completely unaltered by the human beings trying so desperately to remain immortal on its inanimate surface."

I tried to describe our journeys through life not too long ago and this was the description I came up with. We all desire to live, as is evidenced by so many expressions, to the fullest. "Live like there is no tomorrow." "Carpe diem" "Live each day like it is your last" . Yet, so few of us actually grab these cliche quotes by the horns. The juxtapostion of humanity is that we are both creatures of habit and thinkers of thoughts.
As I have processed through the last year I have heard more times than I can count,"How do you do it?" And I always answer, "I get up and put one foot in front of the other every day. " Now, most people would say that is fine for me, having gone through such a horrendous tragedy, but I would be willing to venture that even going through our daily lives we all tend to do that. It is easy, and you fall into a routine. On a much deeper level though, I have been surviving by doing that. Surviving is great- but it is like doing something just enough to check the box off- never satisfying and rarely good quality. Upon losing all that there was to lose in my life, I have suffered also from losing my dreams- the things that I felt like would allow me to be immortal on this earth. Something in me just did not feel like I would ever be able to pick them up again.
Yet, this desire to actually live is still calling out to me. The other day, as I was thinking through all of this, I realized that in order to live the quality life that I really want I must pick up the desires and the dreams and make them happen. Just going through, on a monotonous, routine schedule is never going to be fulfilling, and there are too many people who have given me an example of actually picking up the challenge of life and making things what they imagine that they could be. So, I guess today I would say of myself, I choose life. It can be difficult, but the journey can be made incredible by allowing yourself the freedom to leap, and this world can be made better everyday by all of those who will take the amazing beauty that is inside of them and bring it out to share with all of us.

1 comment:

Melissa said...

i think that it's sometimes easier to not choose life...life can be scary, sad, and full of unexpected turns. so it is definitely a step of courage to be able to choose to truly live, rather than to settle into a mediocre existence.