To Live Beyond Existing

Anyone who has ever suffered from any form of depression knows there is a vast and giant difference between living and existing. Most of us tend to spend most of our lives existing. We get up, we make it through the day, and then we collapse to wrestle with sleep until it’s time to get up again. There may or may not be tears at any point. It’s not that there is anything wrong exactly, it’s that merely making it from bed to bed in a day is exhausting. And yet, we continue to exist.

Existing through each day is essentially autopilot. Doing the bare minimum and keeping up appearances. You also don’t have to necessarily be depressed to exist like this.

I was pondering things during my run today, by the way a run is an excellent time to ponder things… helps the minutes tick by while you forget how much your thighs burn. Anyways, I was pondering how much time I spend just existing and what the difference between existing and living was.

There are some days I’m fully engaged. I’ve got projects, to do lists, they get done, I get happy. So why don’t I do this all the time? Why is it so easy to curl up on the couch and blow through 4+ episodes of my current obsession TV show? (Army Wives at the moment if anyone is interested lol). The danger of this is that it leads into a loop. I feel kinda blah so I veg and do NADA, stuff around the house slips and gets cluttered, and rather than feeling energized after a few hours of doing nothing I’m even more tired than when I got started.

In comparison a day when I hop outta bed and get my run in, do the dishes, prep dinner, clean the house, do the laundry, run errands, do some shopping and make cupcakes for Minime’s birthday I am energetic and wanting more. It’s an interesting conundrum that doing stuff actually gives us energy. For me, I think it’s a mindset. Forcing myself to get off my butt and taking care of things, engaging with my day and living flips a switch in my brain. I’m productive, efficient, I don’t feel like a failure, instead I feel fantastic! That after veg-guilt is a killer.

I realized that a lot of my New Year’s Resolutions are actually centered around making the change from existing to living, and if I had to sum them up in a single resolution that’s what it would be. Even on days when “I don’t feel like” I’m going to force myself to do it anyway, because I know that when I do, I’ll feel a lot better.

This has been a pretty journal-like blog post, but meh, I like sharing my thoughts with y’all. It helps me to wrap my brain around abstract concepts when I try and sort them into a blog post. Some days I succeed better than others. It also helps motivate me and keep me accountable. However to make this less introspective I shall now issue a challenge to anyone who reads this.

Stop sleepwalking, stop existing, and start living.