Does Life Really Matter?

I believe that we all know who we are and who we are meant to be at our core. Even if this belief is only a vague idea. We know we want to be someone great.

But we don’t always live up to this ideal vision of ourselves. On How I Built This, Sara Blakely describes this disappointment as a feeling of “living in the wrong movie”.

I feel like this is a really apt description. As children, we see ourselves as protagonists: the prince or princess, the knight in shining armor, the Joan of Arc. But as we get older, we begin to give up and settle for average. We just let life happen to us.

But more than just settling (at least for me) as I grew up, I began to betray myself. I betrayed the person I knew myself to be by acting contrary to my ideals. By letting my work be mediocre. By being dishonest. By not keeping promises.

These small betrayals added up. Until I became so disintegrated that the person I was and the person I knew myself to be were completely different.

As Jordan Peterson has said, you can choose to live in a way that produces no justification for being alive, but actually the contrary.

You can choose to live in a way that produces no justification for being alive, but actually the contrary.

Jordan Peterson

I was living like that. I was spending hours watching YouTube and scrolling through Instagram and doing nothing of value. And then I began to question the value of my existence.

But, just as you can choose to live as if your existence is of no value, you can choose to live as if you do have value. You can start by valuing your health, your body, your mind. By acting as if your physical body matters, by eating right, working out, taking time to be alone and reflect. Or you can choose to live in a way that justifies a lack of existence.

It’s your life, you choose.