Dying to Live vs. Living to Die
There is a huge difference between two states in terms of life satisfaction, achievements, energy and impact.
On the first glance two people may look similar. Both are alive, both are functional. But one is living in excitement of being alive and another is waiting for something to happen before living fully.
What separates them is their relationship with fear. One has learned to work with fear while another is waiting.
And when we live in fear, we are always waiting.
We are waiting for an outside event that will shake our world and catapult us into the stratosphere of full living. We are waiting for an internal shift that will magically dispel our doubts and allow us to live in our full potential.
We have not yet made the choice of taking ownership for our state or inner stance. We don’t yet know that we can act not being ready or feeling afraid, that our feelings do not define us and that feeling confident or ready or strong is the result, not a requirement of taking action.
We are waiting for our fear to go away and it doesn’t. And it won’t. While we wait and life goes by. That’s living to die.
Dying to live is that exuberance, exhilaration of being alive, that passion and intensity of living that we appreciate and admire in other people.
We think it’s some special personality trait, a lucky streak of genes perhaps, but it’s not. It’s simply the absence of fear or learning to live with it and accepting fear as part of life.
I like this metaphor from a writer Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic of how she makes plenty of space for her fear while embarking on a creative project. Read this excerpt.
When we are not afraid, we are excited about life. Like all of us were when we were children.
And we can always choose.
Choose to alter our relationship with fear. Choose to do what we think we couldn’t do before because we were afraid. When we are in action, there is no fear. Choose to make ample space for fear as part of our journey or even to play without it instead of dragging our fear behind us like a heavy ball on a chain. That choice is available to us at any moment.
And by doing what we are afraid of, again and again, by not being ready and taking action we show ourselves that we won’t die, that we are stronger than we think until the fear shrinks and quietens and the exhilaration of being alive overflows us and we can’t wait to bite into another wonderful day.
Until we are so excited. Excited to be alive.
