Life

The other day my coworkers and I were discussing what we think – or hope – happens when we die.

Your tax dollars at work.

Backs to our dual monitors, which had long since checked out and turned black, we speculated. Even the phones remained silent. One stated she is not afraid of death.

Me? I’m deathly afraid! Scared to the point where my misguided attempts at keeping myself safe have instead held me back. Kept me from living.

This led me to think of a new question: What do you think happens when we live? Think about it. If you were to look at life from the outside, if we were in some other realm mulling over the question what does it mean to actually live, would our current life be the example we would use? Or would we hope for more? There may be some temptation to take this to a hedonistic place, but I think that type of life is likely to lose its appeal when it stays one-dimensional. We all agreed on this when we discussed thoughts of heaven. As we understand it, the concept is absolutely boring. Struggle leads to growth. Happiness and sadness exist and can be felt because we know the other to be true. We seek happiness because we know the weight and pain of its opposite. Heaven sounds like a flatline. The joy of true happiness and pleasure loses all its meaning and value when we know it won’t be challenged. From this perspective, my concept of living is to get as much out of this life as possible. Never stop being curious, and try not to be afraid of embracing the full experience.

An advantage of a discussion like this is it touches on other aspects of the human being, not just the physical tangible ones we seem to get preoccupied with and use to define a successful life. After all, human beings are much more complex than a figure in a bank account or a title. Life is this weird and wonderful miracle. How easy this is to forget.

The adventure Chad and I are almost ready to launch ourselves into totally fits my definition of living. It has all the necessary scary unknown components that I know have the potential to lead to new discoveries, lessons, and rewards. Despite the fact that letting go of my current life is harder than I expected, I am grateful for this opportunity. It’s funny to want two totally different things at the same time, and somewhat exhausting to muster the energy and resolve required to pull myself in this new direction.

I know this type of adventure is not for everyone. Ask anyone, they will likely have a different idea of what they would use to define living. But whatever their definition may be, cheers to those who are able to step away from what is normal and expected, follow their heart and venture out into the unknown. It’s not easy.