While still alive
Most people die long before their funeral.
They stop growing somewhere in their twenties and spend the next forty years defending that decision.
“We live a very limited version of what life actually is, and we create these limits ourselves. We look through the wrong end of binoculars, wondering why everything is so small and far away.”
Listen to how people talk about their dreams. In past tense. “I wanted…” “I was going to…” “I thought about…” They speak of their ambitions like obituaries, mourning opportunities they killed with inaction.
Death happens slowly. First you postpone the big step. Then you rationalize why the risk isn’t worth it. Then you surround yourself with people who confirm your smallness. Then you confuse comfort with fulfillment. Then you stop noticing the difference between existing and living.
“Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.” – Zhivago
You become a ghost haunting your own life, going through motions that once had meaning, settling for crumbs from the feast you were supposed to build yourself.
“this isn’t how I planned to live, but ‘you have to,’ ‘God suffered so must we,’ ‘suffering redeems blah blah blah,’ ‘we’ll rest in the next life’… What the f…?”
This death is reversible. The person you buried under layers of compromise and excuses is still alive. They’re just suffocating under the weight of who you pretended to be so everyone else could be comfortable.
“Suffering is not a law of nature, not karma, and not punishment. It’s a habit you can quit.”
Most people think they’re too old, too late, too far behind to resurrect their real ambitions. They’ve convinced themselves that ship has sailed. But that ship never left the dock. It’s been waiting at the pier while you found reasons not to board.
“Dreams don’t work unless you do.”
You’re stuck not because circumstances trapped you. You’re stuck because you stopped believing you deserve the escape. You’re not limited by your resources. You’re limited by your attitude toward your own potential.
“Want too much – get too little” – one of those family myths that teach us to live a small life.
Every day you accept less than you’re capable of, you choose to stay dead. Every day you avoid the work that scares you, you choose the grave over growth.
“I don’t have another 10h/week to spend being dead.”
Your dreams didn’t die of natural causes. You strangled them with reasonable excuses.
“The unnecessary falls away.” And suffering is the first thing that falls away when you stop clinging to it.
Stop planning your funeral. Start planning your resurrection.
“A way to outgrow your character. Instead of leveling up this dude, you start leveling up life itself.”
And remember:
“Joy is the proof of work. Earn it.” “If everyone used life to mine their own happiness, things would be better.”
The reactor inside can produce quiet joy instead of quiet desperation. The very joy that is the essence of being.
“It’s not about escaping reality. It’s plunging deeper into reality.”
There’s only one way – straight through life. No turning aside.
Wake up. For real, wake up.