“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever; you just have to live.” ~Natalie Babbitt
Over the last several years I have had family and friends who have had major health issues or have died from various causes. It gives one pause to take the time to slow down and examine our life and expectations we have for living it.
Sometimes many of us are on cruise control going about our days never really looking at things going on around us. Sometimes one needs to wake up to your life. This blog, Traveling Life’s Highways was a wake-up call to me to get out more to see what is out there and experience more.
Let’s be honest. The vast majority of us are driving on the freeway of life. We’ve fallen asleep behind the wheel, lulled by the seemingly endless highway that stretches in a straight line to the horizon. No matter how long the highway may seem from where we are, it will eventually come to an end. Don’t wait until the end to wake up to your life.
Straight Highway in Monument Valley
Most of us live our lives like someone who always drives on the freeway. We get to our destinations faster, but when we avoid the slower country roads, we miss out on the beauty of the land and the people.
Slow down, roll down the windows, get off the highway, and take the unbeaten path.
Be present of the gift of your life in this very moment. “Now” is what matters and most people seem to forget this. We get so caught up in our busy schedules and our to-do lists that we lose out on the ordinary moments that we often disregard as meaningless or unproductive.
Be courageous by being true to yourself.
And be grateful for the ways death teaches us to live.
When my family members and friends died, the realization that I would never experience the impromptu visits hit me hard. With my brother-in-law, I just assumed I would see him on the next visit, as I had done countless times before. But that was not the case. No more visits, golf games, or family time together. It was taken from our family in an instant that July night. I now understood how precious the moments we did have were.
Living in Alaska all those years, I understood that beauty is in each moment of my own life—that I don’t have to wait for the peak moments to feel alive, happy, or loved. I could slow down and enjoy all the blessings of being alive right now.
Sunset
When you have the courage to shape your life from the essence of which you are; you ignite, becoming truly alive. This requires letting go of everything that is inauthentic.
But how can you even know your truth unless you slow down, in your own quiet company? When the inner walls to your soul are plastered with graffiti advertisements, commercials, and the opinions of everyone who has ever known and labeled you, turning yourself inwards requires nothing less than a major clean-up.
Traveling from the known to the unknown requires crossing an abyss of emptiness. We first experience disorientation and confusion. Then if we are willing to cross the abyss in curious and playful wonder, we enter an expansive and untamed country that has its own rhythm. Time melts and thoughts become stories, music, poems, images, ideas. This is the intelligence of the heart, but by that I don't mean just the seat of our emotions. I mean a vast range of receptive and connective abilities, intuition, innovation, wisdom, creativity, and sensitivity; the aesthetic, qualitative and meaning making.
It is here that we uncover our purpose and passion.
Is your life as filling, expansive, and three-dimensional as you would like it to be?
Or does your life feel unfulfilling, small, and two-dimensional?
Some people have no sense of whether their life is how they want it to be, while others are keenly aware that it is not, yet do nothing to change it.
This latter group tends to feel a great deal of discontent and / or unhappiness. This does not mean that ignorance is bliss; with the former group, it just means that they are plodding along and perhaps don’t know that it is possible to have more.
You have to get out there, experience things, make things happen as tomorrow is never promised to anyone. Things change sometimes instantly.
Somewhere on A1A
Don’t miss out on the possibilities ahead of you.