Those Things That Make Us Feel Alive
Wait less. Grant yourself one day and another too. Daring Find refuge in the time of a hug to feel bigger. Escape from time to time. Get on this train that we thought we missed one day. Start dreaming with your eyes open as if there is no tomorrow… All these things that make us feel alive are priceless and bring us happiness.
Living is not the same as feeling alive. However, it is not always easy to reach those nearly perfect states where all of our fibers are awakening. Where our senses are in agreement and where for a moment, everything acquires meaning, transcendence, harmony. It is very difficult to really feel alive in this world where we are rather encouraged to adopt a passive and dependent attitude.
Our reality is orchestrated by the almost continuous feeling that we are missing something. Thanks to this, we become born consumers. People eager to own or achieve things with which to fill an eternal sense of emptiness. Because we are always waiting for something more. Something that, of course, we don’t have. Another product. Another job. A more affectionate couple. A trip to an exotic country … Things. Dimensions. And states that we want to feel.
We are like a triangular piece trying to fit into a puzzle of oval shapes. We focus too much on our surroundings. Finally, we want to adapt to it. Forgetting that happiness comes from a very specific place. The very same thing that is right under the skin: ourselves. It’s a habitat that we often forget to nourish with that ingredient that really makes us feel alive: passion.
To live is to get involved
One of the greatest risks we run is to live in a state of permanent passivity. A state in which we let ourselves go. Dragged along by stimuli and circumstances. Limiting us only to exist. But not to feel. When we dissolve ourselves to such an extent in our obligations, life itself sooner or later becomes another obligation. Hope is then diluted from our horizon and we give way to a sanitized and aimless existence.
It must be clear: to live means to get involved. It means taking risks, being courageous even if fear bites in the stomach. Have not one, but dozens of goals to get up to every day. Although sometimes, and this is our mistake, we choose the easy path: conformism.
We are satisfied with what we have, even though objectively it is not satisfying and does not bring us happiness. We operate this way because it is better to have a bird in hand than a hundred in the air. Although it is obvious, as we open our hands there is not even a bird left, only feathers, only the sad glimpse of what looked like a beautiful promise but in fact was really nothing. Only a dream, a false security.
These things that make us feel alive do not show up in the paths that others draw for us. Not even in the golden cages of our daily comfort zones. To experience the vitality and happiness that gives meaning to everything, you need to have passion. We have to stop thinking about the conditional (if I had, if I was, if he did…) to act in the here and now, in the immediate present. To feel ourselves owners of our steps, explorers of our reality and architects of our dreams.
Those things that make us feel alive
Dare and fail. Try one, ten and twelve more times and then yes… achieve success. A walk in the middle of the afternoon to allow the emergence of new ideas. Practice a sport. The satisfaction of a job well done. A hand that is extended to us when we need it most. A moment of solitude. Complicity between friends. A road to build as a couple. Our hobbies and pleasures. The laughter of a child. Close one stage and start another with more desire, more fear but with more force …
These things that keep us alive are what set our souls on fire. They are what lays the foundations of our being, an illusion to our projects, reasons for our behavior and energy to our capacity for growth. Having them present is fundamental. Because otherwise, our psychological fabric and our resistance disappear. And then the most dangerous happens. The void. And the certainty that existence has no meaning.
Living this emptiness is the opposite of feeling life and therefore we have to be able to defend ourselves from it, to fill every room, every nook of our mind with these things that give us meaning. Viktor Frankl said it at the time. The father of logotherapy and survivor of several concentration camps, taught us in his books that our mission as human beings is to find purpose. Take responsibility for oneself and for human beings so that they can feel fully, fulfilled and free.
The things that make us live are really made of a material without equal: enthusiasm. Each of us will have to find these personal goals and have the courage to shape them to make them our reason, our authentic daily passion. Because like Helen Keller said, if you have the urge to fly, you don’t have to keep crawling even though others do.
Our thoughts Lack of passion in a relationship is one of the most dissatisfied problems in the world of relationships.
