#109: A full life

“Look at the dream team together! I’m sure you were coming up with some magic for us!”

A colleague exclaimed this as they watched two men walk back to their desks together. What had just occured moments before might indeed be described as magic, but not the kind the bystander imagined.

These two were great friends, bound by adventures across the world. Yet that Monday morning, in a busy office, they shared a first: sitting face to face, they watched each other’s eyes water and fought back tears as they spoke of life’s fragility.

One had just said, quietly, “If this really is the end, then I can honestly look back and say I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve lived a good life.”

It was the last time they would sit across from each other.

Answering the question

I often think about those words. Each time I do, I find myself asking: Could I truthfully say the same? Have I lived the life I truly want? Am I living it now?

What would your answer be?

Not long ago, someone asked me, “What do you want?” And then, more pointedly, “No; what do you, want?” Usually fast on my feet and coherent, I struggled to answer. I was told the reason they pressed me was that I so often speak about the needs and wants of others before my own.

Life is beautiful. Yet, it is extremely easy to waste it. The scary thing, is that it doesnt necessitate things to go spectacularly badly, big mistakes to be made, or for a sequence of bad decisions. Simply waking up each day and going through the motions, living life on autopilot is enough. One day becomes a week, a month, a year, a decade, a lifetime.

Every day spent living a life misaligned with what you truly want is is a missed opportunity, a day you don’t get back.

You might say that’s idealistic. that not every day can be a movie, that you have to put your head down and go through periods of struggle to get what you want. I’m with you; I’ve always made sacrifices today in the pursuit of a better tomorrow.

Is that wise though?

There is no finish line

For as long as I can remember, I feel like I have been running a continuous marathon. Once getting to the finish line of one race, it turned out to just be another stage in a race with no end.

It’s only after being forced to step off the running route, did I realise the beauty of the scenery around the route that you don’t fully appreciate if you’re running past it, fully focussed on that finish line.

And the reality is, there is no finish line.

It has gone against everything I’ve ever thought about myself and about life, to intentionally slow down the pace I’m running at. But slowing down makes the race of life sweeter.

So why share all this? To say something simple, yet deeply important:

1. Ask yourself what you truly want

2. Take one step tomorrow to be 1% more aligned with that

We can’t add more days to our lives.

When time is gone, it’s gone forever.

But we can add more life to our days.

We owe it to those who lived fully yet had their days cut short.

A summer interlude

That’s exactly what I’ll be doing. Plane Thoughts will be on an extended summer break while I put my own words into practice. When I started this newsletter, it was about sharing one implementable idea each week. Now, it’s simply food for thought on living a fuller life, however you define that.

I hope this summer brings you more of what you want and need. So that next time you’re asked if you’re living the life you want, you can answer without hesitation: Yes.

Your friend in this,

— AJ

On my bedside table:

📖 Non-fiction: The myth of normal by Gabor Maté

🎬 Video (reel): The mandem don’t cry enough

🎬 Video (reel): La mente grita cuando la boca se calla

💬 Quote: “A change of worldview can change the world viewed.”

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