Living vs. Alive
What does it take to go from just living (boredom) to being ALIVE (fulfilled)?
1. Do what you want: The key to becoming alive (fulfilled) is to follow your impulses and desires, and resist inhibiting them. Essentially, if you want to do it, do it. Be who you are. Your impulses and desires are the only true thing you have to bring to this world, your identity. Your value is your YOU, don’t hide it. To suppress your impulses and desires is to conform to what already exist, what has already been brought, to someone else’s impulses and desires.
2. Recognize that the experiences of life are a spectrum: With one side of that spectrum being suffrage and the other side of that spectrum being love, and everything in between. Life is all of it, not just the good parts. And through giving-in to your impulses and desires, you expose yourself to any part of that spectrum at any moment. It’s the risk of being you and nothing feels more freeing than coming out on the other end of that risk.
To create immunity from any part of the spectrum is to inhibit an impulse or desire and to find yourself getting closer to falling in that blackhole of just living, or boredom.
I believe we should desire to seek being alive more than to seek happiness. Seeking just happiness in itself carries with it its own inhibiting factor, don’t do what you think will make you unhappy. The challenge is, do we always know everything we think will make us unhappy actually will. Sure, some things are no brainers and will make you unhappy, but not every door we’ve kept closed is worth keeping closed (break past those fears).
3. Values and Beliefs: Following your impulses and desires carries with it an inherent risk. We don’t want to find ourselves on the side of suffrage more than we need to. How do we mitigate that risk? To answer this questions, it’s important to know that our impulses and desires originate from our values and beliefs. If we value life, we will not desire to harm others. If we value respecting others, we will not desire to disrespect others. You mitigate risk through your values and beliefs. Those with “good” values and beliefs (love, connection, service, etc.) are more likely to find themselves on the love half of the spectrum. Those with “bad” values and beliefs (greed, gluttony, envy, etc.) are more likely to find themselves on the suffrage half of the spectrum.
It’s important to note that although good or bad values and beliefs play a large role in where we fall most often in the spectrum, if you are truly being yourself, you are never immune to any single part of it.
