Live Your Life

Poetry

“This is your life. Live it the best you can.”

Living isn’t easy. Staying alive is harder. All you can do is follow your instincts and keep going forward, hoping you’ve done the right thing. But more than that, life is about growing and learning. It’s okay to change your mind if you have new insight. It’s okay to form your own opinions and offer advice. Just don’t expect anyone to follow them. This is your life. Live it as best as you can.

© Sarah Doughty

You only get one chance.

This was written for day thirteen
of November Notes.
Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
by Baz Luhrmann, Quintin Tarver, Josh Abrams

18 thoughts on “Live Your Life”

  4. The greatest hindrance towards growth is human stubbornness.

    We maintain a society that tells others to “identify” as only themselves, and never as others. To “identify” with another, is never to not be your own individual, though it does mean to unify oneself with another person’s emotions, as the humans we are. Because, what is humanity without empathy?

    “Love is a judgement,” as I’ll always say. And, people in their suffering, will refuse to believe in that level of understanding.

    Based on who is weak, love judges. Based on what is wounded, love judges. Based on what is needed, love judges.

    If people are continually told that it is wise to “take people’s opinions with a grain of salt”, then empathy is lost, and human understanding is void.

    To my mind, there’s no greater understanding of a human, than an understanding of pain.

    To my mind, as well, there is no greater stunting of growth, than a continual refusal to be understood, by another person, for fear of that judgement. It is because love is an emotion to make a person feel weak. We are strong, when alone, and weak when with others. It is a weakness that I believe contrasts from selfishness. Through continual rejection, we are, of course, strong. Though, when we are weak, it is only because we have now accepted presence, and gotten rid of the feeling of absence.

    “Individualism” is what I view to be a plural term, not a singular one.

    Is love a “hand-out”? I don’t believe it. Because, unlike a “hand-out”, which is limited in its material number, love is an emotion that will not ever disappear.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Ooh I very much enjoyed your perspective on this. I never really considered that love was a judgement, but when you break everything down, that’s pretty much what it is. Being in love means we are vulnerable because of the pain we would feel if that love was lost somehow. This forcing us back into our former “strong” selves because of that isolation and loveless existence. I also agree that love never really goes away, even though we eventually try to move on.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I actually find it to be despicable that this world actually does promote a “self-love”, or “self-worth”, or “self-identification”… self-everything. People will say, “I don’t need anyone’s approval,” or they’ll say, “I don’t care what people think of me.”

        I truly believe that all this does is create a world where no one understands each other, simply because no one makes the attempt.

        The opposite from all this “self” promotion, would be to identify or relate to someone else, out of having an open mind in understanding someone else’s pain. You see, if we are void of empathy, and never look in the mirror of someone else’s eyes, then all we will do is see our own reflection, and fall in love with it. This is Narcissism.

        Humans should be able to look at another person’s eyes, and see themselves, as well, in the reflection. The only other option is to see yourself, and only yourself, while never considering anyone else, in the “picture”.

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      2. Oh I agree. It seems people are slowly losing their ability to empathize. It’s not only “self” shippers. Sometimes the other end of the spectrum applies. Beyond the narcissistic tendentious and into a form of bullying. There’s a ever-narrowing path of empathy that is harder to navigate for many.

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  6. Faced with my own mortality ten years ago, and freaking, I at last found a cardiologist who knew what she was doing. I asked her, “What should I do?” looking for clues to how to salvage or extend my existence. She said, “Nobody gets out alive. Take your meds, live your life.” What? Yeah. Your life is your life. Get over it, get on with it. Amen.

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