This past weekend I had a strong feeling expressed as this thought: I don’t want to live, yet I don’t want to die. I wasn’t sure what it meant at first and worried that it might be a sign of a dangerous depression or something. But I think what it means is this:
I don’t want to live the life I’ve been living.
It makes me think of reincarnation. Now I think reincarnation is a silly idea in any literal sense, but I love it as a metaphor. We die and are reborn in each moment. What do we learn from moment to moment, and do we repeat our mistakes or do we grow from our “past lives”?
I’ve learned that I’ve tended to see life as being outside of me, either out in the world or out in the future. I need to bring it in closer.
Case in point: Clients and friends tell me often how I’ve changed their life for the better. That used to be very meaningful to me. I felt good about making a positive contribution in the world. I even used contribution as a big part of my business vision and life mission.
Recently, though, my thought upon receiving someone’s gratitude for the difference I’ve made in their life is, “So what?” What good does that do me? It doesn’t put money in my pocket, it doesn’t get me a girlfriend, etc., etc. This may sound mercenary, selfish, and shallow, but I think there’s a breakthrough in there if we look closer.
Let’s say I water a flower and it blooms. I can take credit for my contribution and say, “Look at what I did,” and feel good about it and build up my ego from it. Or I can say, “So what? What good does that blooming flower do for me?” In the context of a flower (instead of a friend or client) both of those options seem silly. And, more importantly, it opens me to a third possibility:
I can simply enjoy the experience of witnessing a flower bloom.
The experience is what’s important because that’s what life is, an experience. When I say “bring life in closer” what I mean is focus more on my experience right now, in every now.
In this context, contributing is not what I give to someone; contributing is an experience I have.
When I said I don’t want to live, I was saying I want to stop pretending at living, I want to stop going through the motions of living without actually experiencing life. And when I said I don’t want to die, I was saying that I don’t want to continue the slow death that’s been my life.
I want to experience more life in my life.
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