My greatest fear is living a boring life. What’s yours?
Choosing to LIVE DEEPER
Trust me, I’ve got others: Being alone. Jumping out of an airplane. Getting trapped in an elevator with Gary Busey. The list goes on, but living a boring life, a life that doesn’t matter, tops them all.
Although I’ve never formally studied philosophy, I’m definitely the type of person who ponders—no, wrestles. A lot. I ask the tough questions (or at least I like to think they’re tough). I refuse to settle for the easy answer. And cliches? Spout one off and prepare to be MMA’d, silently, in a cage match held in my mind.
All of the questions I’ve asked have been valid questions, but in my Journey for the Truth, I’ve ignored a lot of people along the way. Hyper focused on myself and MY struggles, MY questions, MY doubts. Not always, but enough to give me pause now that I’m old and wise and 36…
All those years asking, “Why am I here?” and “What am I supposed to be doing?”, I wound up doing a lot of…nothing, while I waited on the answer. The exact opposite of what I wanted. But more importantly, I walked right past people—hurting, hungry, hopeless people—that I might have been able to help in some way.
That weighs heavily on me.
For about seven years, I’ve been a professional scuba instructor. After I complete the certification dives with my students, I always like to take them on a Fun Dive just to enjoy themselves. No dive skills to be performed. Strictly a chance to see what’s down there. I’ll point out a camouflaged octopus, and a buried flounder with just his eyes poking up through the sand, and shine a light into a crevice to reveal a pod of lobsters hiding in the rocks. Then, when we get back to the boat, I’ll ask them, “So what’d you think of the octopus?” Inevitably, half of the group will say, “What octopus? I didn’t see anything. I was just trying to stay alive!” They swam right passed it, oblivious to the amazing creatures only an arm’s length away.
In our lives, how often do we all “swim right passed it” just trying to stay alive? Too often. That’s an easy question. But the real tragedy in life is that the octopus might actually be a homeless man, camouflaged into the urban background we ignore to get where we’re going. That flounder might be a single mother buried under two jobs and three kids. And one of those lobsters might be a struggling teen, hiding in the crowd, believing that no one even notices she exists.
The difficult question, I guess, is are you willing to ask the difficult questions?
Are you willing to look closer? Are you willing to make yourself available for what you find? Are you willing to be a part of something extraordinary before you actually realize it is, in fact, extraordinary? Are you willing to put aside your fears, and choose to LIVE DEEPER™?
If so, I invite you to be a part of launching The LIVE DEEPER™ Movement.
I refuse to live a boring life. I think you should too.
Kevin Sage is the founder of The LIVE DEEPER™ Movement: A community of adventurers who savor life, seek adventure, and serve their neighbors in need. If you’d like to learn more and become a Founding Member, visit www.iLIVEDEEPER.com.
