How to Live.
This past Monday was the anniversary of my mom's death, which always makes me both introspective and almost animalistic in my desire to live life properly. I penned a few words about it here, but still found myself scribbling notes on the back of a napkin on how I want to live an effervescent existence.
These lists are almost cliché at this point, but that doesn’t stop me from constantly creating my own and revisiting them time and time again when I'm feeling lost. Maybe one of these things will speak to your heart.
Book the last-minute flight to far-flung lands. Flex your spontaneity muscles and be thankful for the flexibility that allows you to do so. Thrust your senses into new environments—feel the beating sun toasting your skin, the sweat pooling uncomfortably in all your crevices. Let different smells invade your nostrils—steaming hot bread out of the oven, the saturated earth after an intense summer rain, the offensive Bradford pear tree that mocks you with its beauty, the acrid eye-watering alleyways of a city that doesn't have a sewer system, the briny sea of a country you can't even find on a map. Roll your tongue over new foods, new languages, new words. Apologize when you need to but also don't if it's undeserved. Speak your truth from the depths of your belly. Say things that make people wildly uncomfortable but also cause them to question their own beliefs. Swallow drinks from unmarked bottles, meals that make you moan with pleasure, your pride. Ask for help and accept it wholeheartedly. Find yourself in the middle of the night under an open sky, in a downpour, in a firm embrace. Seek out new experiences, even if it's taking a new route home from work or ordering something different off the menu. Stand in places where the colors are so bright they hurt your eyes, where the wind can top you right over, where the familiar sights and sounds can crack your heart right open. Pursue discomfort that lights your nerve endings on fire—jump into the water that steals your breath, shimmy your way into the middle of a dance floor, trudge through the mud that pulls at you, shiver so hard your teeth want to fall out.
Don't follow blindly—pause and question everything. Is this a life you're proud of? Do you feel wildly alive, or are you just going through the motions?
What would you add to your own list of how to live?