This Is How You Live

You could die in a hot-air balloon accident.

You could wake, one morning, to find your loved one cold and stiff in bed next to you, their lips thundercloud blue.

You might suffer a fatal infection from a rabid bat bite.

You might become locked in a battle — one you will eventually lose — against an invisible murderer, one who perches upon your shoulder, whispers in your ear, tells you to gobble the contents of that bottle of pills, to tie that rope around your own neck, to swan dive out that 19th-story window.
Your child, whom you will raise and breastfeed and teach to speak and walk and love, she could be ripped from this world in ways too myriad to list, almost as soon as your begin to cradle her frail, pink, soft, baby-scented body to your chest.

The cruel, gnarled roots of twisted fate that corkscrew and entangle and strangle and stifle, they’re more than enough to keep you awake at night, your eyes wide, rigor-mortised, plastered to the odd bumps and cracks and subtle shifts of your ceiling, which might have mold growing, seeping, brackish and vile, infecting its way down the yellowing plaster of the wall.
Your plane, while gliding along at a merry 3,000m, could be blown away by a not-so-rogue missile. Perhaps you were on page 217 of James Patterson’s latest novel, Alex Cross 44: In Space! Does it matter? Ha ha! Oh, you! You will not finish that book, never will — it was literally disintegrated in the resulting explosive shock wave that pulverized Rows 1-34, seats A-E, which, unfortunately, included yours, B19, a ticket you purchased on standby, and, in a stroke of uncharacteristic good fortune, were allowed to use after a woman, a would-be passenger, came down with a nasty case of strep throat. Or maybe that person, the one who bought the ticket and who didn’t finish that book; could’ve been, it was your wife, with that little faded scar on her upper lip and that slightly crooked nose you found so endearing, rendered to a fine bloody mist. Better her than anyone.

Pretty horrifying.

If you think, really think, toss aside religion and afterlives, peer through the lens of realism and pragmatism and through the filmy rheum of soft-boiled nihilism, well, there doesn’t seem to be much to live for.

But you do; you live. You do not spend the day coiled in cold-sweated bed sheets, clutching your precious sons and daughters, fiancées and fiancés, boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives, brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and aunts and grandparents and uncles — clutching yourself — to your chest, terrified of an errant motorist or an assault rifle-toting psychopath or the looming wraith-hordes of fatal diseases.

More likely than not, you don’t give any of it a second thought.
You pack those fears in an infinity-ton bindle, shoulder it and promptly forget it. And then you trudge, walk, sometimes race onward, and not once, not for the love of God, no thank you sir, do you pause and wonder and open that sack of horrors, not even for the slightest peek. For even a glance would mean to be sucked, immediately and forever, black hole, into the deep, viscous tar pit that is bubbling despair and sadistic fantasies of grief and sorrow and angst and loss and darkness.
No, you keep on hiking, hill after trail bend after rocky gorge after mountain vista, having acknowledged those fears and rejected them, not in terms of their potentiality, their titanium, bomb shelter-proof truths, but because it is the only way to defeat that against which you are Lilliputian, powerless, faceless and meaningless.

You lead a happy, full life in the face of prospective, all too often inherent future misery. And when that midnight blackness does bear down, wraps it razor blade-studded tentacles around your throat, you take your beating and you towel off and bandage up and you keep on truckin’. If you can.

You live in the eye of the hurricane, and it’s only a matter of time before that sucker brings the house down, tears apart the very foundation of all you’ve ever known. But there you stand, outside, rain-drenched, lightning rod raised skyward, screaming for that puppy to come on, to give you all it’s got.

The best, most admirable part of being human, that spite, the ability to, consciously or not, ignore the warning bells, the howling alarms, the crimson wind-torn flags pleading with you to stop, to listen, begging you to take notice, to understand that something is irrevocably, intrinsically wrong.
Instead you continue, uninterrupted, your search for — and sometimes discovery of — joy, love, excitement. You dig it up, suck it out from whatever crevices or crannies in which it may hide, gulp it down and grin, find it delicious and ask, please, for another taste.

Discovering Yourself Through Your Experiences

If you want to be happy, you need to be present in the moment, you need to open up your mind and eyes to see the universe from all different sides and angles. You need to be part of your own existence rather than live passively. There’s one bulletproof way to do so, and it’s to engage with your own life and push yourself into areas that are outside of your comfort zone. Even the smallest measures you take will count.

Have you ever heard of the term “momentphoria”? Well, you have now. Possibly because it has just been created. It’s not easy to explain certain situations that make you feel human but these moments are important because they somehow make you understand yourself better, in a magical yet realistic way. Momentphorias are certain experiences that occur when you feel inexplicably euphoric, as if an eruption of emotions that you did not know existed in you flows through your soul. They usually happen when you let go of familiar habits and experience something completely new to you.

It was that one summer afternoon, when my friend dragged me to my first yoga practice in the great outdoor with at least fifty other sweaty strangers, that I finally viewed life from an entirely different angle. Literally. The instructor guided us into our next position: the most uncomfortable one, downward facing dog. It was then when my whole perspective changed. I opened my eyes and what I saw left me feeling heavy with gratefulness. I saw mother earth upside down. And I don’t know if it was the zen-high functioning at the time, but I felt as though the weight of the entire planet was held in the palm of my hands. Yet, I also felt as light as a feather. As though I was falling against the sky, defying all laws of physics, gravity, and Newton’s apple. Newton was wrong at that specific moment. I felt small and not in a bad way, but in a way that is somehow liberating. If earth was this big and I was this small, then how tiny were my worries in comparison. I was in utter awe, hesitantly trying to keep my eyes open like a newborn child that is scared of the unfamiliar change of surrounding. But then I finally embraced the view of the sky and its endlessness, its infiniteness. In that moment, I fully acknowledged my existence in this humongous space that I often don’t give enough attention to. All it took was to see my world from the same lens but from an unfamiliar angle to make all the difference in my perspective. It took the patience to balance myself in discomfort on all fours, to really see the bigger picture that holds my existence together.
If you want to discover who you are, you need to discover what makes you shiver with passion. And in order to do that, you need to keep trying new things and experimenting new techniques to live by. It will make you happy, almost ecstatic to see what you will see, learn what you will learn, and feel what you will feel. The new things you choose to try may not be as comfortable as the new show you chose to watch on your couch, but at least they’ll have a solid impact on you. Often, just like anything worthwhile, the impact is not instant. But when you’re well down the road, you’ll look back and notice how much your choices changed you. Good things rarely happen when you religiously follow your routine. For example, a new and exciting job is somewhere outside your day-to-day life. It’s out there waiting for you to come in its direction. A new and exciting friend is also doing different adventures that are outside of your box of comfort, which is what makes them attractive in the first place. It only takes getting yourself out there to understand your purpose. Maybe you’ll change your perspective or maybe you’ll change your entire life. It doesn’t have to be an epic change of lifestyle; just doing one new thing every day can magically turn your dull life into an extraordinary one. And it will make you feel more alive than ever.

6 Things To Remember When You Go Holiday Shopping

1. Unless the cashier/sales person has done something to personally offend you, FIND A MANAGER. Retail workers do NOT get paid enough to deal with your complaining bullshit.

2. If you’re one of those people who don’t trust plastic and prefer to write check, BRING CASH. The lines are going to be long enough already so please be considerate of the other shoppers. No one wants to stand behind you and watch you write a check when we all know that a debit card is the same thing.

3. If you feel the need to return something on Black Friday or Super Saturday, lie down until that feeling passes. Now I know that sometimes it’s unavoidable (i.e. you can’t get the same sale price unless you get that new size/color on the same day, it’s a time sensitive gift) but if you have absolutely no choice, at least remember these rules:

• Have your receipt readily available.

• If the same person who does returns is also the cashier, don’t walk up to them expecting immediate attention. Get in line with everyone else.

• If you don’t have your receipt, that’s your own fault. You can either get store credit or do an exchange. You can NOT get angry with the associate. They are just following the rules.

4. ALWAYS pay attention to signage. I understand that unless you’ve worked retail, you don’t understand how to properly read SKUs or how some things are abbreviated BUT, you can at least attempt to double check the price yourself before you stop everything at the register for a price check. The holidays make all stores crazy messy. This brings me to my next point….

5. PUT THINGS BACK WHERE YOU GOT THEM! This should be a no brainer. I mean, it’s what we learned how to do in pre-school. Unfortunately though, Christmas shopping makes everyone forget their manners and they leave things in all sorts of places.

6. Be kind to others. People are quick to lose sight of what this time of year is really about. Before you push someone to grab the last copy of Frozen ask yourself, “Is it really worth it?” Whatever it is you feel the need to be aggressive towards others for, I PROMISE you will find another one before December 25^th. There are always sales throughout the season so it’s worth a few extra bucks if you get to also keep your dignity.