The Starting Line

What are we waiting for? The most cliched "deep" question is one of what our lives would look like if the world ended tomorrow. It's supposed to spur us on to live life at its most meaningful - whatever that means. Somehow faced with our own mortality, we are supposed to relish every moment, every sunrise, every tiny breath of air. Our food should taster better simply for having it. Our actions should mirror these outside experiences and become significant on a grander scale.

Basically, if we all knew we were dying together, our actions would fall into two categories: apathy and zealotry.

Or, the simplest of actions would automatically become significant within the context.

The question I ask is almost the same: what are we waiting for? If it did all end tomorrow - most of our lives would have little meaning. We've never earned a million dollars, given it all to charity, flown to every country, painted a self-portrait, built a house, destroyed an evil, protected the innocent, been in love, etc. All of the things that we've been programmed to believe are important deeds are just beyond our grasp.

Thus, two problems. We must shake off the old ideals of what matters and what doesn't. We are inundated with images of celebrities. They're important. Politicians. People of power. Influence. They are all drastic figures, and we are but the lowly ones looking constantly upward toward their light. We have to stop.

The closest thing of importance to us is people. They surround us everyday. We're almost sick of them, there are so many. Nevertheless, if we want to truly influence, to truly make a difference, it can be a simple as giving advice, listening to a story, or sitting in silence with a friend.

But we are almost bothered by others. We don't have time for their needs because we are so focused on our own - our own needs being incredibly insignificant (since we aren't celebrities or politicians...). We should learn to make their needs, our needs.

You don't need money to impact people. Or power. Or fame. We are imbued naturally with the tools to connect.

The second problem: I claim that we are waiting on something. We're waiting for some cosmic starting gun or some invisible hand to give us permission to live our lives. This is the only explanation that makes sense - for, if we weren't waiting on something, why wouldn't we be out impacting the world?

Do you sometimes feel like you're waiting for permission to live?