First Written: 30-May-2023 | Tue 10:22

Do something wack. Go on an adventure. Road trip. Do something spontaneous.

Isn’t it what we all want?

Just to feel alive?

Live a life where we challenge ourselves? Live one with no regrets?

We get sucked in to the daily routine and forget to enjoy life. Bananas, isn’t it? Bananas that we wouldn’t make our own enjoyment the main priority of our own freaking lives? What are we doing?

Sometimes we’re working for the enjoyment of our future selves, which is good, but sometimes we just forget to enjoy ourselves. Afterall, present self is future self of past self.

We have to enjoy the Right Now. There is no other time.

I recently started a 9-5 job and I’m going to be honest… this is borderline violation of the 8th.

It feels like every minute of every day I’m working. I’m counting down the minutes until I don’t have to be working. The work day is consuming.

It’s so consuming that it makes it difficult to do the things I enjoy outside of work. The blocked off 8 hours of work bleeds over to 9, 10, 11, 12 hours because of how much energy and focus it requires.

We’re working to get off work? That’s all we’re waiting for? Just to get to the end?

What kind of existence is that? The only time we’re excited is when we’re finished?

We sort of built the habit up in grade school… then middle school… then high school. Just wait for that bell to ring, right? But then we keep waiting for the bell to ring. When do we take control?

We keep living for the finish line.

If the remaining 80 years of my life are spent just trying to get to the end… then that was a failure.

This video is a perfect representation of how the 9-5 feels. It’s like we’re just pushing off being alive.

We need to refocus the effort and repriorize our day.

There’s a proverb I heard from Power of Moments that says:

“Variety is the spice of life”

But it seems that we settle so hard in to the rhythm that we forget to spice it up until it’s too late.

Our only vacation comes when some external force offers us a vacation or our friend or wife suggests a fun trip. And then we focus on the vacation. It seems to be secondary. We get roped in. Next thing we know 5 years has passed. Next thing it’s been 30. Next thing we’re dead… or so I’m told.

Pepper. Cinnamon. Cloves. Cardamom.

WE NEED MORE SPICE.

We need to be deliberate about the spice.

Our life is our soup and we’re the chef. Nobody else is gonna make that thing taste good.

An Attempt to Spice

When I first wrote this, it was the Tuesday after Memorial Day Weekend 2023. This refers to a conversation with my cousin from Reno, NV (I’m in Las Vegas) Friday night before the long weekend.

“What’re you doing this weekend?”
“Not sure”
“Wanna hang out?”
“Maybe. I might be going to Santa Barbara though :(“

*long pause as we realize it’s logistically improbable*

“Want to come?”
“Dude that’s a lot of money”
“Come on, let’s do something”
“Dude, that’s so far”
“Come ON, let’s DO something”
“Hey, you right, on my way”

The next morning I’m in my Toyota Camry, overdue for an oil change, on my way to California.

There is no substitute.

Friends just make you feel alive.

It reminded me that family and friends are the best fucking thing life has got to offer and it’s never not worth it to see them.

It also reminded me that money is irrelevant if I don’t get quality time with people. And if that doesn’t happen each and every single day of my life then I have seriously messed up.

There is a correct way to spend life. And it’s with people you care about.

Correct. Yes. Anything other than vast amounts of love is an inadequate life.

Parking lot camping, midnight ocean dips, and laughing straight from the soul.

On a whim we both said ‘sure, why not’.

When we’re moments away from dying we’re not going to regret the things we did do, we’ll only regret the things we didn’t.

Midnight on the same Saturday night my cousin Miles pitched the idea of swimming in the ocean.

“What in the…”

Next thing I know, we were stripped down, in the dark, sprinting straight for the whitewash.

I hear a shout come from a normally controlled and unexpressive voice as the soaked face of my younger cousin echoes off the residential houses above the Seacliff’s:

“I FEEL ALIVEEEEE”

Damn, dude. Me too.
Me. Fricking. Too.

I do feel alive.

Variety is the spice of life, but if we don’t make it a priority it’s not going to happen. We have to open ourselves up to the possibility of “What If”.

That’s my new philosophy on life. Take it or leave it, but that’s how I’m going to start livin’ because…

I’m just trying to Feel Alive more often.