As children, we are taught to explore the world and to have fun. We're supposed to make friendships and learn social skills, be respectful to our elders, and learn basic household chores. We get to watch television and listen to music, while going to school and doing simple homework. There are many things we develop as children and those who do things that adults should do, are told they have had no childhood. We're born to have fun and we exist to live life to the fullest. Through the pain and the misery, but also through the happiness and the adrenaline.
What about as we grow older though?
As college and work happen, we are thrown into adult life with absolutely no skills but the Pythagorean Theorem in our thoughts. We aren't taught how to file taxes, how to write checks or balance our money, and we aren't taught the basic cost of living. We aren't shown how to look for jobs or how to travel to a different city with guidelines on how to apartment hunt or grocery shop for one person. We have no idea what to do except get a job and pay bills. We only live to exist. Do you see the difference?
We grow up from having the time of our lives to possibly hating life each day because we spend it working to survive in the economy we live in. We settle down and have kids and then watch them have fun until they too must undergo our same struggles. In my opinion, we should be living more.
Life experiences are what will make us happiest, being able to take a photo of a day at the beach is a mood booster compared to the morning outfit photo we take before work. We live in a world that is unforgiving, it is power hungry, and even worse, money hungry. We spend most of our lives making money only to spend it on the basic necessities that we need. The average person has to save for months to years in order to go on a vacation or to even go to Chuck E Cheese for a day.
I want to be able to get my degrees and learn about life every day, about people, I want to have a job I love. I don't want to wake up every morning and know that I am living just so I can survive. I want to be able to save money to continue to learn about new hobbies. I want to learn instruments, how to read more complex music, to afford books that interest me, to buy the music that makes me happy, and so much more. Sadly, I need money to do these things because I don't know how to teach myself to play instruments and all sheet music costs money these days. Movies are going to be only available in Blu-ray at some point, making them ten dollars more expensive. The worst part of it all, I may be left with only digital books some day.
Technology is great but I will miss out on the experience of physically flipping the page, of marking my place with a bookmark, and I will certainly miss the smell of each book I read. There are so many experiences I may miss out on besides the ones that will happen right beneath my nose. I want to travel the world and see all of the different cultures. I would have to save up money for a lifetime to visit everything and at that point, what if I'm too old to go? I want to have tons of photos and stories for my children and I want them to experience it all too.
I don't want to exist in this world just to survive. I want to live and experience the world I have been blessed to see. I want to enjoy the great outdoors and not be trapped to my studies or technology all day. I could just turn the power button to off but I feel addicted to this screen, to the Internet, and to the battery life. I do not just want to exist in my occupation, I want to love it and excel at it. I want to help others who cannot live to exist at all make it into existing. I want to help the unfortunate live for themselves and not for survival.
What about you, though? What do you do to experience life? Do you wake up every day and think "another day, another dollar" or do you love your job? If you merely exist then I hope that changes some day. I hope you take the time to yourself to read a good book or even write one. Maybe you want to produce a silly video or a serious one. Even if you have big dreams, it isn't too late to make them happen.
Don't let anyone tell you that your place is on this earth when you only dream of being in the stars. Your life is yours and if that means putting aside a dollar each day to save up to see a new movie then so be it. Even though they call us adults, it does not mean we are just that. We are still children and we deserve to be as such. Our childhood is just called something different and we have the opportunity to make it even better. As a child, we dream of working and having fun and as an adult, we have the tools to make it happen.
If you ever feel that you are falling astray from your dreams or your life. Ask yourself a simple question. Ask it in the third person or the first person, maybe even second. Ask it while you're looking in the mirror or while you're driving. Ask it while you're talking to a friend or family member. Ask it when you first wake up or before you go to bed at night. Just ask it and reflect on the life you're living and let these few words set in then think of how it makes you feel and how you can change that feeling.
The question is so simple but so complex at the same time.
Do you live to exist or exist to live?
