I Still Think You Have To Live Your Life On Fire...

I have never been sure what is meant by talk about a "wasted" life or not letting life "pass you by." I think for most people, that which constitutes a meaningful life varies greatly. Because people have different priorities, there is no clear "right" way to live your life. But recently, I have begun to reevaluate my own criteria for such qualification. I am not one to sit idly. I'd say my soul is pretty impassioned (and restless), so for me it is most logical to judge my life from the perspective of action. For a long time, I have repeatedly asked myself Am I doing what I want to be doing? Am I getting as much out of my life as I possibly can? And then not long ago, I began to reevaluate my standards.

Finding myself in doubt of the questions I most commonly ask myself, I began to wonder if perhaps I was unsatisfied with the answers, and simply trying to justify "wasting" my life away. Thankfully, after much introspection, I realized that in fact I am quite happy with what I am doing. I get a lot out of life in every moment! But I also realized that the questions I was asking myself may not have been the right questions. They were important questions, certainly, but they were too self-centered to be accurate indicators of how well I am living my life. After all, life isn't just about me. It's about the world. I preach that all the time! So I turned the questions around. Instead of judging myself by how much I am getting out of this world, I began to percolate on the idea of what I am putting into this world.

At first it seemed I was having a fundamental change of heart. My new standards for judging my own life seemed to be the opposite of my old ones. I wondered if such a swing would force me to dramatically change my habits and my hobbies. I began to remind myself several times a day that I needed to judge myself from the perspective of contribution. Contribution -- that is not the opposite of action. In fact, it is a type action. Was my new approach narrower than my old one? I usually recoil at the thought of narrowness. I like to take as wide an approach to understanding and judging as possible. After all, this is a big, big world. But in thinking about my new question (Are you contributing as much as you can to your world?), I concluded that this is actually a much wider perspective than my previous approach. Even though contribution seems narrower than action, my new perspective embodies my old one.

The world is a closed system. What goes around, comes around. That which we put in eventually returns to us (usually in some new form). By recognizing and prioritizing contribution, and by focusing on putting in, I can still engineer what I get out of life. Only by focusing on contributing to your world can you see that you are also controlling what your world gives you. After realizing that asking myself about what I am putting into my world also captures my need to get as much out of my world that I can, I realized that my original question of introspection still applies. Am I doing what I want to be doing? But instead of determining that want from the perspective of getting what I want, I have to focus on giving what I want.

Focusing on contribution doesn't mean giving everything all the time. It doesn't even mean that I have to be contributing all the time. The importance of the question is that it forces me to be aware of how generous I am, how cooperative I am, and how much I am putting in versus taking out. It's too exhausting to constantly be concerned with the welfare of everyone else. Sometimes we do need to focus on ourselves. Over-emphasizing the importance of contribution can actually create tasks so daunting that we paralyze ourselves, and as a result we end up contributing very little. But recognizing contribution, by extension, leads to a recognition of the balance between give and take. Giving a little more to your world can lead to some surprising gets, as well. I'll never stop judging my life from the perspective of action. I am a do-er. But I am also a thinker, and I think that now I have a better understanding how to live, love, and do.

Using my new question, I realize there are changes to be made in my life, mostly small ones. I have begun to recognize the plethora of opportunities to contribute. I have found I actually have a lot more to share that I thought. I am also beginning to find the limitations of what I can contribute. As a consequence, I have become more aware of what other people can contribute, as well. I'm seeing the big picture in a different way than I have before. I judge people not by what they are trying to get out of the world or make the world do for them (although in many cases I have found quite noble answers to those questions). Now I judge people by their value to society. The theory of evolution suggests that we are all given skills and talents to promote not just our personal welfare, but the survival and advancement of our entire species. Ah yes, this new perspective is indeed much wider than the old. I see a bigger picture than I ever have before. But at the same time, I am realizing that this perspective works in the micro as well as it works in the macro. I can judge not just my life from the perspective of contribution, but also my relationships.

It is still important for me to get as much out of life as I can. Especially in school, I strive to get, absorb, obtain. But I also see that despite my relative ignorance, there is a lot I can give. I can cooperate with my fellow students more. By extension, cooperating means I'll get more out of it, too! So many times has cogitation led me to the conclusion that the right answer is a balanced one. I am starting to understand the most general and universal notion of "living life right." It's about balancing the give and the take. But to do that, we have to be equally aware of what we put in and what we take out.

The Glue That Holds Us Together

There are a lot of reasons that people come together and form close friendships. Cohesive groups can be built on a shared passion, neighborhood, tragedy, lifestyle, or hobby. I never put much thought into what brought and holds my friends together until someone outside the circle spoke to me about what brings his friends together. "No matter what," he said. "My friends and I all really try to treat people right." That struck me not only as an admirable trait, but also as an incredibly impressive distinction for a group of friends. Their dedication to that code must be really strong if it is what holds together their friendship.

What singular aspect, then, is responsible for holding my crew together? I couldn't pinpoint just one. By and large, we're conscientious: politically, socially, and environmentally. But that isn't what defines who we are. We also have an unparalleled passion for music, despite the rather wide canvas which encompasses our personal tastes. But that isn't a defining characteristic for any of us, either. We all share a taste for the absurd, a desire to bring people together to laugh and dance and eat, and a general love for life. But until today, I had not realized that this love for life presents a pair of attitudes that we all find rather difficult to balance. Perhaps this is what defines us as individuals and as a group.

On the one hand, I believe we are a group that loves every moment of happiness more than most. Our capacity for feeling good is simply greater than that of most others. To love laughter and the joy of your finer moments makes the anticipation of future adventures almost too much to bear. To love new experiences and yearn for them to the point that we drop everything for the chance to drive across the country on a scooter or teach English in Korea for a year (which has appealed not only to one of my friends, but three), is certainly a distinctive characteristic. Our thirst for new people and places carries us forward like a riptide. We start a life at a job, a school, a new city with precise focus, only to be drawn down the shore by the enticing possibilities around us. On ever-changing paths to the future, we allow ourselves to be carried forward by unknown forces.

But this love for life doesn't just draw us toward the uncertain future, it also hold us back. We share a strong sense of nostalgia. We look back and see moments of uncontrollable laughter, easy afternoons beneath sunny skies, and uninhibited hours of freedom in the universe we created. We recall bringing people together to dance, to grill, to marvel at fireworks and watch the reflections of our smiles in each others' eyes. When we find ourselves at a fork in the uncertain road to the future, the appeal of the past grows stronger. We know we can make our lives whatever we want them to be, so ever-present among the countless options before us is the possibility of recreating the finest of our memories and making an attempt at going back in time.

I have many conversations with friends about wanting to go back to where it all started -- be that Pittsburgh or Semester at Sea or Costa Rica -- and extend the lifestyle of our pasts indefinitely into the future. But I also realize that we're all thirsting to experience everything and fill our lives with new adventures. Could we really be happy living in a situation as familiar as one intentionally created to mimic what we have already seen and done?

I don't know how to balance these contradictory loves for the past and future except by moving forward into the unknown while holding on tight to the people who were there from the beginning. Places can't be carried with you, but people can. Even as they change and grow into ever more complicated creatures, people can be held close to help you carry the pure joy of the past into the wild excitement of the future.