Life in a bottle

Come with me on a flashback. Standing on the edge of a massive precipice, gazing onwards at the layers of watercolored mountains resting purposefully on one another. Watching the cotton candy clouds lazily float by overhead while a granite dome retires for the night next to a crystalline lake. We both take a breath, and in unison, the valley breathes with us with enough force to nearly knock us both off the ledge.

The past two years have been the most significant of my life. Not due to any pandemic, trauma, or life changing incident, but to a yearning to understand what it truly means to live. I returned home from that trip like I had returned from countless before; and attempted to go on with my life, like I had countless times before. But this time, I was unable. My mind kept wandering back to that moment, and the forest it happened in. It was more than simply wanting to go back on vacations. It was a yearning to be back in the majestic paradise of God's imagination. The farther time moved from that location, the harder it was to resist the restlessness growing inside of me. After two years, I find myself wandering further and further everyday, into the open spaces of nature surrounding our city. And getting home later and later every time.

    My point in this is not to say that everyone needs to go out into nature and become a mountain man like myself(though I do believe wholeheartedly that every soul needs to have that type of encounter.)

My point is that every person has things that they enjoy. But further than that, every person has things that make them feel alive. The great tragedy of our world is that most people don't even know what these are. To truly live is the rarest thing in our world. Most people simply exist. I think it is important to ask yourself which category you fall into. Life itself is a privilege. But to live life to the fullest- that is a choice.

    If your answer isn't an emphatic,"LIVING," then I implore you to pause and truly take a moment to ask yourself why. Time moves by rapidly. You blink and years are gone. So let me ask: Over the past two years, how many life changing moments have you had? I'm not talking about a nice instagram picture you took or some nice fuzzy feeling you got at a concert. I'm talking about the kind of encounter that makes you want to jump out of excitement and run and share it? Because if the amount of those is succeeded by the amount of mundane moments, then you should truly question why. Never allow waiting to become a habit. Find a way to live your dreams. Take the risks. Fail. Try again. Try something new. It is impossible to live without failing at something. Unless you have lived so cautiously that you never fail at all... but in that case, you have failed by default.

    In conclusion, I do not intend to say that you have to doanything to enjoy a rich, purposeful life. I understand that travels and expenditures cost time and effort. Though I will say that money and time become almost irrelevant when you're willing to strip down to the bare essentials. I will touch on the other topics of The importance of dreams and The liberation of contentment in following post, but my goal for this one is to get all of you asking yourself this question: Are you living a life you completely, wholeheartedly, and passionately enjoy, or are there things keeping your fire from growing.

Are you living connected to your dreams and the people who love you, or  are you isolated from your fire, living life in a bottle?