Tag: life

Life is short, life is long

Life is short. Life is long. Both statements are true. Use them to your advantage instead of using them as an excuse. What do I mean?

Life is short when you think of our lifespan versus the span of our universe. We shouldn’t waste our time here focusing on things that don’t matter. Yes, we all need money to survive, but are you suffering in other areas because your sole focus is money? After all, we can’t take it with us when we die.

Are you sacrificing time with family, working on your health (mental, physical, spiritual), or letting relationships disintegrate because you choose not to go out to eat with friends or you’re stuck at the office again? Life is meant to be experienced. Go out and have an adventure. Even if it’s not a two week vacation to an exotic location, you can still take “micro adventures” nearby. Can you just go for a day hike, camp in your backyard, or do a ropes course? Can you go to a museum or go four wheeling somewhere? It doesn’t have to be expensive to be meaningful and create lasting memories. Life is short, so go make the most of it.

But guess what?

Life is long.

What??? Didn’t I just go over why life is short? YOLO, right? Well, yes and no. You still need to be responsible and play the long game. It feels good to eat pizza and ice cream, to sleep in, binge watch the latest show, and go on a spending spree. But if that’s your everyday life, the next thing you know, you’ll wake up and it will be ten years later with you weighing 50 lbs more than you ever have, not having challenged yourself or used your brain in a meaningful way, and be up to your eyeballs in debt.

Hopefully you’ll live for a long time. But to live your best future life, more often than not, you’ll need to delay doing what feels good today. You will have to eat right, go workout, read a book occasionally, spend less money than you make and invest the rest. Life is long. Don’t get caught up in hurting your future self by only thinking about what your present self wants.

Just like everything in life, you have to find balance. Find the balance between living for today and setting yourself up for the future. If you go all in on one or the other, you’re much more likely to regret your decisions.

Responding to what happens to us

There is a great quote by Charles Swindoll in which he says, “life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond to it.” The numbers are made up, but that’s not the point. The point is that we can’t control the world around us, but we can control our actions/reactions to life events. Trying to control what other people say, do, or think is a waste of energy. Trying to control a situation that is out of your hands or dealing with an event that might or might not happen in the future isn’t going to help. Don’t let the surrounding events dictate your life.

For past events, accept that what has happened has already happened. You can’t change the past, no matter how hard you want to. If it’s something that you did wrong, you can’t take back what you did. But you can apologize and make sure that you don’t do it again. If it was someone who wronged you, you can choose to forgive them or not. I’d choose to forgive though, because why carry around the negative feelings? It probably doesn’t affect the other person the way that you’re letting it affect you. You’re giving them power over you even after they have wronged you.

For events happening right now, you can only act with what information you have at hand. Do what you think is right, what feels right, and try not to live with any regrets. You won’t do things perfectly. And in the future you might chalk it up to being young and dumb, but that’s ok. Grow from your experiences. If you honestly believe that you’re doing what’s best (and trying to be empathetic if your actions will affect others), you’re more likely to be ok with your current decisions later in life.

For future events, develop plans. I will do Plan A if X happens and I will do Plan B if Y happens, etc etc. These should be general plans because nothing will ever happen exactly as you lay it out in your plan. But if you have a general idea of what you’ll do if certain things happen, you’re more likely to respond in a more productive way to the future circumstances because you’ve at least given it a little thought. You never know what the future will bring, but once again, life is only 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.

Ultimately, we are more responsible for the outcome of our lives than we tend to believe. Sometimes it feels like things are happening “to us” instead of “for us,” but the actions we take/don’t take often will have a far greater impact on our lives than the events surrounding us. Don’t be the victim in your life story. Be the victor. Conquer life’s challenges and keep working to be the solution as the world presents more problems to you.