All of us have them, but not all of us realize it.

We all have certain things in our life that -- with them gone -- we would not want to continue living.

Sometimes, we actually have these things in our life (like an awesome job, a solid friend group, a significant other), but the things that we don’t have can count, too.

You may not continue to live life if you had to live without pursuing a new career (which you don't have yet).
You may not want to keep going if you can no longer find a greater meaning to your work.
You may give up if you knew that you’d never find happiness -- something that you may not have but something that you are desperately believing that you will someday find.

What actually makes life worth living?

People complain about all the bad going on in the world and all that is wrong with their country. However, maybe the course of bad or good in the world has parallels with the bad and good that we find within our own lives. Maybe if we didn’t focus so much on what we didn’t have but held more tightly to what we do (and what we can do with what we do have), then the world could start looking up.

1. Pursuing

Apathy and passivity are two sure ways to make sure that your life feels meaningless. It’s a pass for you to be able to continue complaining about all that you see around you. It’s a way for you to stop being engaged.

If you want to lead that type of a life, be my guest. Know that you are harming more than just yourself when you do so, though. You’re harming people by keeping the good that you could be doing from them.

What if you never gave up pursuing? Pursuing your dreams, pursuing your relationships, pursuing new goals, pursuing positive change?

Never give up (never give up) pursuing what’s in your life and what you hope for your life with all you’ve got.

2. Learning

An arrogant self-satisfaction with your knowledge of the world and a smug contentedness with your set way of living are sure ways to prevent progress and growth.

If you think that you know it all and that you’ve arrived, (well), you have. You’ve arrived at stagnation.

However, if you choose to never give up even a small sense of wonder, you would wonder at all that’s in store.

What if you kept your mind open to new ideas? What if you were open to continually learning how to better communicate? What if you were open to more ways to impact the world of those around you?

What if you were open to learning more about yourself through criticism and wanted to learn how to change your actions to best meet the needs of others around you?

Never give up your wonder, your sense of learning, your willingness to change.

3. Relating

Remaining disengaged from the people around you is one way to make sure that you don’t get as hurt as you could.

If you refuse to relate to the people around you, then you save yourself (some) pain, but you also rob yourself of a lot of joy.

You can relate to the people around you. You can honestly seek to see not through the lens of your own needs but according to the needs of others. You can seek out real, deep relationships where you can laugh and exist through this life together.

Never give up on relating to the people around you.

4. Questioning

Accepting life as it currently is is one sure way to make sure that life may never become more than it could now. It’s one way to see that it does not become all that it could be.

What if you refused to settle? What if you chose to look around and not see set-in-stone limitations in your life (or even the lives of those around you)? What if you choose to question whether there’s a better way to do something, a better way to live your life?

Maybe your questions could start affecting more than just you. Maybe you could question something of life that would lead to a new idea -- a new way of doing something or even of thinking. This could change. This could change how you act which would change how people react to you which could change how they could react to others.

Never give up questioning and striving for new developments and growth.

Yes, much is tragic in this world. Much seems broken. Pain seems everywhere.

We can complain about all that life’s not, or we can choose to meet life with all that we are.

We can choose to never give up -- never give up on the things that make our lives worth living, never give up on the things that could (maybe) make this world more of a better place.

Never give up.