Life Owes Us Nothing
I almost forgot about my notes to a suicidal friend who asked "But what meaning is there to life?" all the time. An urgent question she needed an answer to in order to grope her way through her suffocating head to where the air was clear. She was certain that life had no meaning and without meaning it is better to be dead. I heard her and I understood what she was asking. We go through so much pain in life, maybe some more than others, and we look back and ask "What was all of that for?". It feels like the only way we can pick up our feet again to move forward away from pain is if pain has a reason, a purpose.
We make up reasons all the time. But I don't believe that the big picture has reason. I believe in karma only because it is so completely obvious that we get what we give. I believe it makes a difference how we act and how we think. But I don't think that there is some grand plan for each of us in life. I don't think there is one purpose for us or one path. I don't believe that life is about purpose. Unless you think living as long as possible is purpose.
We live because we are alive. We stay alive until we die because we are built with an instinct to survive. I think it's that breathtakingly simple.
Maybe life feels better when we have focus, when we have a plan, and when we use the gifts we were given with our corporeal equipment. Achievement is admirable, but sometimes it gets in the way of everything that really counts. Like breathing. Sleeping. Noticing the texture of the soil underneath our feet and caking under black fingernails.
In the past three years of struggling to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing, what path I'm supposed to be taking, and what I'm supposed to achieve in this life I forgot about the letters. I forgot what I used to tell ailing spirits. I forgot the words I used to say.
I'm remembering it now because I have been listening to so many other people like me struggle in the same way and the old reassurance comes tumbling out of my mouth without over thinking.
Stop beating against the glass like a trapped moth. This is life. This is what it is. Right here, right now. There's no such thing as "supposed to" or "should". Our job is to breath. Life isn't complicated. We make it complicated because the hardest thing of all is to accept simplicity. We have no right to expect to live for any specific amount of time. We have no right to expect no sorrow. We have no rights. All we have a right to is this millisecond. The one we're having right now.
Everything else is just extra.
Why bother living life? Because one second of pure air, pure love, pure happiness is worth all the pain we humans inevitably inflict upon each other and on ourselves. Why bother living life? Because coffee at 5:30 in the morning is the best experience in the world. Because one great night spent eating home made food with friends while drinking beer or wine and talking politics passionately is worth all the rest of the time when life sucks.
Just living, and living well, is enough reward for being alive. A life in which no awards are won, no publicly recognized achievements are made, or in which nothing remarkable has apparently happened is still a tremendous achievement in itself if it was lived with senses awake and memory sponging up the liquid light of every morning.
I said so many times that there is no grand purpose but to enjoy pinching the leaves off of herbs to put in an omelet. There is no greater reason for living than to love another being. To notice the shifting precipitation in the air and to watch the lightening from a perch. This is what it's about: the minutiae.
Mothers in my age group are obsessed with advising new mothers to "Enjoy every minute of your baby's early years because they go so fast". What kind of pressure is that? What a huge burden to put on someone. You don't have to enjoy every minute of it and you won't. What's important is to take care of the person you brought here. What's important is to enjoy those impossibly tiny minutes in which you are both laughing so hard you pee your pants and not chastise yourself for all the times your baby made you want to die of exhaustion. Stop worrying about whole lifetimes and just try to be present right now.
What I told my friend who wanted to know why she should bother living is that it doesn't matter what her life looks like to anyone when she gets to the end of it. There is no neon sign that says "Congratulations! You did what you were supposed to! You may now die with pride!" What you see when you look back is not how you should be moving forward. Out of pain. What you see when you look back has already been. Cannot be changed. Cannot give greater meaning to this moment we are in. Right now.
When you stop asking what life is "supposed" to be you will realize that it already is what it's supposed to be. Full of pain, love, laughter, shame, propellant, flight, stagnation, hunger, danger, abuse, kindness, creation, all of it.
Oxygen. Life is about oxygen in our lungs. Blood in our veins with a pump to keep it fresh. That's all it is. We can live it or lose it. It owes us nothing. It gave us everything already.
So stop breaking your feathers against the dank glass. Stop thrashing yourself against this wall of your own making.
Sit still.
Breath.
That's all there is and it's a gift because none of us did anything to deserve it.
We make up reasons all the time. But I don't believe that the big picture has reason. I believe in karma only because it is so completely obvious that we get what we give. I believe it makes a difference how we act and how we think. But I don't think that there is some grand plan for each of us in life. I don't think there is one purpose for us or one path. I don't believe that life is about purpose. Unless you think living as long as possible is purpose.
We live because we are alive. We stay alive until we die because we are built with an instinct to survive. I think it's that breathtakingly simple.
Maybe life feels better when we have focus, when we have a plan, and when we use the gifts we were given with our corporeal equipment. Achievement is admirable, but sometimes it gets in the way of everything that really counts. Like breathing. Sleeping. Noticing the texture of the soil underneath our feet and caking under black fingernails.
In the past three years of struggling to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing, what path I'm supposed to be taking, and what I'm supposed to achieve in this life I forgot about the letters. I forgot what I used to tell ailing spirits. I forgot the words I used to say.
I'm remembering it now because I have been listening to so many other people like me struggle in the same way and the old reassurance comes tumbling out of my mouth without over thinking.
Stop beating against the glass like a trapped moth. This is life. This is what it is. Right here, right now. There's no such thing as "supposed to" or "should". Our job is to breath. Life isn't complicated. We make it complicated because the hardest thing of all is to accept simplicity. We have no right to expect to live for any specific amount of time. We have no right to expect no sorrow. We have no rights. All we have a right to is this millisecond. The one we're having right now.
Everything else is just extra.
Why bother living life? Because one second of pure air, pure love, pure happiness is worth all the pain we humans inevitably inflict upon each other and on ourselves. Why bother living life? Because coffee at 5:30 in the morning is the best experience in the world. Because one great night spent eating home made food with friends while drinking beer or wine and talking politics passionately is worth all the rest of the time when life sucks.
Just living, and living well, is enough reward for being alive. A life in which no awards are won, no publicly recognized achievements are made, or in which nothing remarkable has apparently happened is still a tremendous achievement in itself if it was lived with senses awake and memory sponging up the liquid light of every morning.
I said so many times that there is no grand purpose but to enjoy pinching the leaves off of herbs to put in an omelet. There is no greater reason for living than to love another being. To notice the shifting precipitation in the air and to watch the lightening from a perch. This is what it's about: the minutiae.
Mothers in my age group are obsessed with advising new mothers to "Enjoy every minute of your baby's early years because they go so fast". What kind of pressure is that? What a huge burden to put on someone. You don't have to enjoy every minute of it and you won't. What's important is to take care of the person you brought here. What's important is to enjoy those impossibly tiny minutes in which you are both laughing so hard you pee your pants and not chastise yourself for all the times your baby made you want to die of exhaustion. Stop worrying about whole lifetimes and just try to be present right now.
What I told my friend who wanted to know why she should bother living is that it doesn't matter what her life looks like to anyone when she gets to the end of it. There is no neon sign that says "Congratulations! You did what you were supposed to! You may now die with pride!" What you see when you look back is not how you should be moving forward. Out of pain. What you see when you look back has already been. Cannot be changed. Cannot give greater meaning to this moment we are in. Right now.
When you stop asking what life is "supposed" to be you will realize that it already is what it's supposed to be. Full of pain, love, laughter, shame, propellant, flight, stagnation, hunger, danger, abuse, kindness, creation, all of it.
Oxygen. Life is about oxygen in our lungs. Blood in our veins with a pump to keep it fresh. That's all it is. We can live it or lose it. It owes us nothing. It gave us everything already.
So stop breaking your feathers against the dank glass. Stop thrashing yourself against this wall of your own making.
Sit still.
Breath.
That's all there is and it's a gift because none of us did anything to deserve it.