Alive

Alive[uh-lahv]

-adjective
1. having life; living; existing; not dead or lifeless
2. living
3. in a state of action; in force or operation; active
4. full of energy and spirit; lively
5. having the quality of life; vivid; vibrant

Live[liv]

-verb [used without object]
1. to have life, as an organism; be alive; be capable of vital functions
2. to continue to have life; remain alive
3. to continue in existence, operation, memory, etc.; last
4.to maintain or support one's existence; provide for oneself
5. to feed or subsist (usually followed by on  or upon 
6. to dwell or reside (usually followed by in, at,  etc.)
7.to pass life in a specified manner
8. to direct or regulate one's life
9.to experience or enjoy life to the full

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I found this quote by Howard Thurman a few weeks ago, and it really struck a chord with me. I put it up on my quotes page, though I never really mentioned it in any posts. Consider it mentioned.

Too often, I think we look at the world and think of all the things we can do to change it. I know this was especially true with my friends and I while we were in college. We were surrounded by amazing people doing amazing things with their lives, and the answers seemed to be right there. We knew what we were supposed to do for the world. It was actually doing it that was the hard part.

I think a lot of young people have this conundrum. We are taught to believe that we truly can change the world, though we are never really told how. It's up to us to discover, and many times we look to others to see what they are doing. But that's the problem, isn't it? We can never be as passionate about someone else's dream as they are, or as we would be with our own dream.

But what if we just threw that whole "I'm going to change the world" concept out the window? Life would be a hell of a lot less stressful, that's for sure. What if, instead, we did what made us come alive?

I just love that concept of "coming alive." It just seems so powerful, yet so attainable. It's something that I feel I can do, even when life isn't necessarily cooperating.

A few weeks ago, I wrote what I call "My Mission." If you haven't read it yet, you can find it here. The part that, I think, really goes along with this whole concept of being alive is this:


And I want to live passionately.
I want live and love and just *be* passionately.
I want to truly believe in what I believe,
And stand by it without being ashamed.
I want to discover the things and people that I love,
And truly love them.

If we all just truly believed in things and acted upon what we believe in; if we honestly and completely loved the things that we loved, don't you think we would be more alive than when trying to meet some unknown and abstract goal? Perhaps if we stopped worrying so much about what we can do for others, and just started living the lives that we want to live, we actually would change the world.

Much love,