“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” ― Oscar Wilde
Life is a precious gift, and one that can be all too brief. Before you came to this life, you had a deliberate intent to be here. You chose your parents. You packed your bag. You came forth into this world with a plan, or at the very least a sense of adventure and possibility, and a rough checklist of things you thought sounded interesting.
So here you are. This is it – your moment!
How’s that working out for you?
Life really IS for living. Not for existing. Not for pleasing others. Not for mere surviving.
It doesn’t have to be about riches, winning, and being super-productive. Life is not measured only in achievements or possessions.
Life is about experiences, relationships, following your heart, finding pleasure in the small moments, being satisfied with who you are, where you are, and who you’re with. Or being excited about where life is taking you, and allowing your life to be a glorious work in progress.
I had a client come to me recently where I got a very strong glimpse of a past life – the one immediately before this one. This man had been a soldier in World War One. Before that he’d been a teacher. He hadn’t wanted to go to war, but he went ‘to do the right thing’. He left his new wife behind to fight in the trenches and absolute misery and hell of the Western Front and then Passchendaele. He survived, only to come home and find his wife and mother dead. He later died from influenza; cold, lonely and miserable.
Why was that relevant to his next lifetime? All he’d thought about, during the war, and in between lives, was about what he wanted for this next life. He wanted a simple life. No great responsibilities; a gentle life of suburban ordinariness with his wife and family. The chance to grow old. To live in a warm climate, in a dry house, with plenty to eat, and enough to do to keep him busy. That was his dream, and now he’s living it. He’ll never be famous. He’ll never be rich. But already he knows contentment. And contentment for him is enough.
Of course that’s not everyone’s path. Some people have a flame blazing brightly within them. They have a driving passion to be or do something.
We all walk different paths and have different dreams. All we ever need to do is what’s right for us. We each come to this life for the experience – to learn and grow by making our own choices. And ultimately each of us seeks happiness, fulfillment, love. That is going to look different for every single person because we come from diversity and we exist in diversity.
Are you following your dreams?
Did you put them aside to live someone else’s dream for you? Do you say to yourself, ‘one day I’ll get to it…’ Did you sacrifice your dreams to let someone else achieve theirs? Or are you doing something you don’t want to do because you’re told that ‘this’ is what’s expected of you. Are you down the bottom of the pile, letting other people stand on top of you to reach theirs through your unrewarded efforts?
Or did you just give up?
You are not here in your skin to live this precious life for others, or to let them live through you. And you’re not here to fix things, or make things right for ‘them’. This is not a duty call. This is not a dress rehearsal. This is your one shot to make this life work for YOU.
Life too short to waste it on doing things you don’t want to do, being places you don’t want to be, or being in relationships with people who don’t love you or make you happy.
If you want to explore this further you might find these posts useful:
Using your Internal Compass to navigate life
Telling yourself a better story
