I Am Surviving, Not Living

If life was truly about living…

I would snowboard every week. I would make more sandcastles at the beach. I would build a pillow fort and only use flashlights and candles once a month. I would foster a caterpillar just like we did in elementary school and then let it go. I would try to learn how to play more instruments. I would actually finish my scrapbooks. I would be more willing to start a family.

If I could just live, I would live.

But all I can do is survive.

If you were to ask me: "Have you found your passions, what you enjoy, and what brings you true happiness?" My answer would be: "yes, and most of them are listed in the first paragraph."

But if you were to ask me how many of those I actually get to put my time into, I would say about ⅕ of my passions.

You see, the thing is, we are always told to find what we are passionate about and to find a job we love and we will never have to work a day in our lives. But we are avoiding the fact that we are actually telling people you have to be damn good at that thing you are passionate about to do it the majority of your life.

We have turned simply finding and understanding our passions into making our passions a job so it can provide us with a living, and the fact that we have to do that upsets me.

Why does money have to be such an emphasis in this life?

The reality is, if we can't make a living off of one of our passions, we will have to end up dedicating 40 hours a week to something that is not our passion, just to live.

We can love something and be passionate about something, but suck at it. And it's okay to suck at something and still be content with that. But society pushes us to give it up since we can't make a living off something we aren't good at.

Or maybe we want to keep our hobbies as hobbies. We can be talented in one thing, but not want money to be a part of it because sometimes that can ruin something for us. Maybe we don't want our hobbies and passions that bring us the utmost joy, to become a job for fear of dreading it in the end.

So are we really pushing society to find their passions? To find what they love? To be happy? I find myself giving up more of my hobbies over time because I have to put my time into making a fucking living. And yes, I do make time to do some of my hobbies, but not nearly as much as I would want to.

To me, that's not what I would call living. I am simply surviving.

So I'll dream about the life where I live. Maybe one day I will be able to live in the fullness of days and not just mere moments.