This post isn’t about New Year’s Resolutions, or even particularly New Year itself but as it’s that time of year and fits with the theme, I’m making a connection.
The point of this post is to talk about living: not the passive, heart ticking and breathing sort of living, but the active alive sort of living.
Mortality
“You don’t have to find out you’re dying to start living.” – Zach Sobiech.
I read a news article sometime last year about a teenager who died in a bike accident which included a quote from his dad: “He’s like any lad, they just think they are invincible.”.
We aren’t invincible – we all know we’re going to die someday. And we’re all aware that there’s a small chance we could die in some sort of freak accident any day. But this is usually just a theoretical awareness. But it isn’t like we’re actually aware of it, and in following the saying “ignorance is bliss”, we like to completely put out of our minds the possibility we could die at any time.
I think that our mortality, both in the sometime-in-the-future and the risk of dying any day, is something we should be aware of.
We should live with it as a thought in our minds, not try to hide from it.
I don’t mean that we should spend all day hiding in bed, fearing the possibility of death. I mean that we should live in the face of death, facing up to it and living in spite of it. It’s easy to view death as a negative thing we should forget about to be happier – because in a way, everything is pointless in the face of death – but there are positives to take away from it too, and when we view it correctly, the positive of facing our mortality far outweighs the negativity of fearing our death.
“Know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum“ -Mary Schmich 1
Living
So, what should we do in spite of death? Live.
Really live. Not just the passive, heart ticking and still breathing sort of life, but the active “living life to the full #yolo” sort of living.
There’s a well known adage usually used in this sort of situation: “Live every day like it’s your last”. I’m not a particular fan of this one, as presumably if it were our last day we might do crazy things, though not necessarily. What would we do if it was our last day? Hard to know how we would react, but it presumably would be so overwhelming we wouldn’t know what to do. There’s a series of videos about people’s last days (though it spans further than just days) on the youtube channel Soul Pancake. I’ve seen one of them, about a guy called Zach, and it was really inspirational (while being heartbreaking at the same time), which I’m really glad I’ve seen and would recommend you all watch too. Much of the thought behind this post is inspired by it, or at least came from my reaction to watching it.
To repeat the quote I used at the start, he says, “I want everyone to know, you don’t have to find out you’re dying to start living.“
Start living.
In the video, Zach’s mum describes that one of the blessings of cancer is coming out of denial (which presumably means facing up to death), and says that because of it, “Things are better. Life is richer. Everything means more. Beauty is more beautiful.” Because once they found out he was dying, they strove to make the most of the time they had.
One of his sisters says, “He’s shown me that its not all about the grades you get or how cool you are in high school, it’s about doing what makes you happy, and no matter when you’re gonna go, live your life to the fullest every day.” This challenge, to live, means making the most of all of our time. Life is so precious. Especially in the world we (in the western world) and the freedom we have because of the relative security we have, knowing on the most part that we have food and shelter and aren’t in danger of war, natural disaster or disease, we have even more to make the most of. In the face of death, we have a moral duty to make the most of our life, in astick it to the man sort of way.
I often think that we have so much wealth and freedom and, in general, few real problems, and that it’s a huge shame we don’t make more of it. We have so much going for us due to scientific/technological advances, but we don’t seem to have done much with it.
Like this comic from xkcd (www.xkcd.com).
In this modern world we seem to have lost our way a bit. I’ve seen a few videos of poor people in Africa who seem to be smiling and having fun in spite of their situations, kids who all enjoy playing with a simple stick or deflated ball. And sure, seeing them smile in a video doesn’t prove anything and is almost certainly a complete misrepresentation, but given the freedom and greater economic welfare we have, we should doing much better, not having people being so unhappy (like the prevalence of bullying at school or mental health problems in society), isolated (people seem to be less sociable and have fewer friends than in previous generations, but I don’t have any scientific backing for this), and unhealthy (of which there are many examples I could provide).
Living in the Moment
I think of this philosophy of living as being “living in the moment”. Making the most of the present, enjoying the time we’re experiencing now as best we can. In the liner narrative of time, only the present matters. The past is gone and the future is to come, and they only matter in as far as they affect us in the present. We experience memories, fears, hopes and dreams in the present, though they are about the past or future.
This sort of idea has come around recently with the phrase “yolo” (standing for You Only Live Once, for those of you lucky enough to not have seen it). But this is used in pop culture to justify crazy and silly things, like getting really drunk. I just searched twitter for the hashtag #yolo and found people things like: “well I’m 18 now… Guess this means I should get a tattoo or something”; “since I got an iPhone Twitter & Instagram have begun to consume my life”; and “going to school not caring what I look like”.
The YOLO sort of living I describe as living for the moment; what I’m instead advocating is living in the moment. (I got this from a friend, so attribute credit for this to David).
We have to remember that as well as the present moments, we will have a future of present moments too, and we will live in our potential future present moments. Living in the moment doesn’t mean throwing away your future, but making the most of now and the future, doing things to live to the fullest. Do things that are both good for now and for the future, striking a good balance between them, instead of living so as to completely disregard possible future consequences.
Of course, the opposite is problematic too. Living for the moment (for example, eating bad food that feels good at that second all the time, or doing things which risk the future) is the polar opposite of living for the future. Living for the future means to me that people are focussed too much on the future, like always thinking “life will be better when I have this job/buy that car/finish school/university/move house” etc. Lots of people look forward to future events like holidays or christmas, and are always saying “I can’t wait for X”. An example might be somebody studying something they don’t enjoy, to get a job they won’t enjoy, to eventually have a job that pays well enough they’ll live a comfortable life and be happy.
Now I don’t want to comment on whether happiness is to be found with material wealth, but it seems to me that sacrificing the present for the future is part of a way of thinking which means the future, when it comes, won’t be properly enjoyed. People who think, “life will be so good when I buy that car” might buy the car, realise it doesn’t quite meet their expectations, and then focus on the next thing they will do/buy to improve their life.
Zach was planning out going to college and possible careers, but in his words, “Turns out sometimes you can’t do that.” Make sure you aren’t letting the future distract you too much to enjoy the present.
So living in the moment is about striking the right balance between living for the moment and for the future, both a good mixture of things that are enjoyable now (fun) and will bring benefit in the future (like studying or being healthy). It also means changing the way we think or act in the present to make the most of the time we give ourselves to have fun.
To the fullest?
Up until now, it’s just been ramble to bring us to the question of what living life to the fullest means.
I think the most important thing is to try to have more meaningful and genuine experiences and less superficial ones. For me, I see watching a TV programme to pass the time and don’t care about much (junk TV) as a superficial experience and watching a good TV programme which can have a deeper emotional response as an example, but of course it is down to taste.
One of the first memories I have of thinking like this was as a 15-year-old, looking back on a school holiday in which I had done nothing but played computer games for two weeks and vowing that next holiday, I would make better use of my time. So the following holiday, I played computer games and went running every day. It was both better for me health-wise and more enjoyable.
With healthy eating, I eat more healthily than I could not just because there’s future benefit, but also because I enjoy life more when I eat healthily. Food tastes better and I have more energy. I try to use time well, not sitting around doing nothing and watching rubbish TV but doing something better.
I’ll now put some thoughts that I have about living a better life and having more meaningful experiences.
1. Don’t waste time. This is probably where the most difference can be made. Replace things with better things. I stopped watching TV as a habit many years ago – if I find myself thinking, “what should I do with this couple of hours”, I don’t let myself fill it with watching TV. Nothing against watching TV, but if it’s done in a non-habit way by deciding what to watch and then going to watch it (like DVD or catch-up) then less time is spent and you don’t fill it with the crap stuff as much. I’m trying to cut down on procrastination, as that’s clearly just a waste of time that makes the thing you’re trying to do take up more time and give you less time to use outside that. There’ll be another post about a specific thing I’m working on to waste less time to follow this one.
2. I think that putting yourself outside of your comfort zone is important in searching for genuine experiences. Don’t let fear of looking stupid, having a bad time or failing hold you back (as a side-note, I think that our society’s general view on failure is completely wrong), as they might be stopping you from doing something great.
When we’re outside our comfort zone, we’re challenged more and more emotional (whatever the uncomfortable emotion is), and doing something good in the face of this means the good thing is more worthwhile. Whether it’s going to an event that you aren’t sure if it’s good, putting yourself out there socially, or for a parkour example, doing a jump which is scary, it’s often beneficial. At any rate, we shouldn’t let something being outside our comfort zone stop us from doing it.
This is something I’ve been challenging myself with more recently on my year abroad. The easy option would be just to spend lots of time sat in my room with my computer, but instead I’m trying to do more. I’ve been scared of going to social events where I either know few people or nobody, but done it anyway and (mostly) enjoyed it. I’ve joined a new sports club, despite a fear that it would be hard to understand and might be a waste of time (there were some language difficulties, but of course that’s how you learn).
3. I also try to look for more meaningful social interaction. It’s easy to have superficial conversations, small talk about not much, especially with ‘social’ media. But instead, I’ve tried to connect better with people and be more open about myself, wear my heart on my sleeve a bit more. I try to find people I get on well with and enjoy being around, instead of always accepting the easy option, so aim to put more effort into finding them. This also means, in a slightly mercenary way, stepping back from relationships that might not be going anyway or are harmful.
A good conversation can be very enjoyable, whether it’s with a best friend or a chance encounter with a stranger. As part of this I try to say positive things and show genuine appreciation for other people, something I’m recently trying to do more. We often think good things but don’t always say them, but a positive comment can be easy to make while meaning a lot.
My current challenge is to make more friends in Germany, where the Erasmus outsider experience mixed with the German university culture (link to post) in which people are a bit more withdrawn and keep their friends from home more instead of finding completely new groups has made this less easy. I can think of many occasions where I’ve made effort to make friends I wouldn’t usually, but also many when I haven’t bothered.
3b. Another challenge on this theme would be to talk to strangers. This isn’t one I’ve done anything about, but I know I should. When I’m eating lunch in the cafeteria on my own and see someone else eating on their own, I know it probably makes more sense to go and join them and eat with them, but this isn’t something I’ve ever done.
4. The hardest piece of advice is to let go of negative emotions. This is, as with most beneficial things, much more easily said than done, and it’s also really obvious that if you can clear out some of the negative emotion then the living in the moment will generally be better. There’s both smaller things and bigger things that affect us, but in general we shouldn’t let things get to us. There’s a lot more zen-style philosophy on this, but I’ll leave it with a lyric from Pink’s God is a DJ: “You get what you’regiven/it’s all how you use it“.
Emotions only affect us to the extent we let them affect us, though some things are much less detachable than other things. I’ve got a new method where I can laugh at myself if I have a negative reaction to something that I know I should let go of. Watching a video about a guy dying of cancer (or a film about the 1965 Indonesian military regime that killed over a million, or whatever) helps put me into perspective a bit. For example, if I fancy a girl and she doesn’t like me and this makes me sad, I now laugh at myself about how silly this is. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being unsympathetic and the emotional reaction, being emotional, isn’t rational; this is just a method I’ve found).
Conclusion
I strongly recommend watching the video about Zach that inspired part of this post, it’s definitely describable as life-changing (but then so many things have the potential to be life-changing, so it isn’t saying too much).
To summarise the whole thing, the message to take away from this is: we are mortal and should live to the fullest.
Plus the following quote:
And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
~Abraham Lincoln
PS Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this (to a constructive degree) and if there’s anything you can think of which might improve life enjoyment.
1 taken from the speech-turned-into-song Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen at the following link, which is definitely worth checking out and full of great advice: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI>