Are You Living Life or Is Life Living You?

This meant following the same routine you had been doing for years. You got up, brushed your teeth, showered, ate (not necessarily in that order) got ready for work, went to work, did your work, maintained a social life, went home (to family or maybe you lived alone), watched TV, ate, and went to bed.  Maybe before going to bed, you reflected on how your day went. You thought about how you smiled and laughed on the outside with everyone, but on the inside, you were yearning and crying out for greater meaning, satisfaction and purpose in your life. 

While lying there you fell asleep hoping to get up to things being better but only waking up to that same familiar feeling in your stomach.  The feeling that tells you it’s another day but nothing has changed… and with that, you began to go through the same routine as the previous days, weeks, months; feeling the same yet doing nothing about it.

Life Living you is that moment where you realize you can no longer continue doing what you are doing (job, school, relationship etc.) because you need more, you want more, you desire more, you dream for more and yet do nothing about it.  

Rationalizing will steal your life away from you and before you know it your time is up 

Let me say it again: the period of time that follows the moment where you realize that you want and need more but decide to continue doing nothing is what I refer to as life living you.  You take no actions toward changing the status quo, neither slowly nor quickly.  Instead, you fight or rationalize your way to remaining comfortably uncomfortable in your current situation. 

Each day and the routine of that day dictates what you do. Living has become functional instead of fun.  You go to work so you can get paid to provide for your family or just for you.  You look for the next promotion because you need money or because it you would make you feel or look successful and so on.  Yes, you want all those things you dreamed of but you say to yourself, “Hey, let’s be realistic here, there is no way I can have these things”, then go on to list all the reasons why you can’t have them.

Living life has become robotic instead of meaningful.

Living life has become functional instead of fun.

Living life has become playing it safe instead of exploring it.

Which one of these valleys are you in?

We don’t all experience this debilitating phenomenon of “Life Living Us” in the same way.  We tend to experience it in one of two ways:

1. You can no longer continue doing what you are doing because you are unhappy.  You need to do something more even if you don’t know what that more looks like.  You want to act, but you don’t know where to begin… so you continue living your status quo life.
   
   
2. There is something you always wanted to do (career, relationship, hobby, etc.) but have avoided it because of either a legitimate reason or one that you have legitimized.  Regardless of which one, you are not happy because there is something in you yearning to do this thing and instead of taking action you choose to stifle it with your inaction and by continuing to live your status quo life.
   

Why do many allow Life to Live them?

There are many reasons why we allow ourselves to have life live us; it could be due to fear of something:

• Fear of the unknown
• Fear of failure
• Fear of success
• Fear of how we would be perceived

Or it could be due to lack of something:

• Lack of self-belief
• Lack of a vision
• Lack of a plan
• Lack of action