The times I most feel like I’m living life to the fullest are the times I’m with the people I most love.
I know this for one simple reason: the times I spend with my favorite people are the times I recall most clearly.
Isn’t that a weird thing? That certain times, simply because they’re with certain people, are more memorable?
Are you the same? Do you more clearly recall the times you shared or the times you endured alone? The times you went on trips with friends and family or the times you worked towards some goal?
This is an interesting thing, indeed, because it begs the question: are the most memorable times the times most well spent?
I don’t know. I am reminded, just now, of the regrets of the dying. I won’t research the list because I wish to maintain this stream of consciousness, but I recall at least two of the regrets:
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
I wish I kept up with my friends
And also recall, more recently, a clip of the great Dr. Gabor Mate articulating how he wouldn’t live life how he did if he had the chance to go at it again . . .
In that, he wouldn’t work so hard because his hard work was merely an attempt to compensate for a lack of felt wholeness within.
It seems, from these facts, that life is most well spent not working so hard but doing what we love with the people we love.
And though, of course, we must work to maintain our livelihood, we must not forget the sort of livelihood we are working to maintain.
At the same time, it is characteristic of the good life to strive for your greatest potential . . . To leave it all on the field.
But does this mean we must relinquish others if we are to become all we could?
I think, in fact, that the opposite is true. I think, actually, that while pain is good because it strengthens, while lonesomeness is good because brings one closer to oneself, while lack is good because it clarifies what it means to have, we must not suffer and grow perpetually.
We must also bask in what life has to offer and in what we can offer it.
People think, for some reason, that they must opt for one or the other.
They think they must choose either the yin or the yang.
And though there are seasons for both, it is clear that we cannot have one without the other, and if we do choose just one, we will be plunged, against our will, to the side opposite, into a clarifying darkness.