Inhibitive Instincts

I have truly come to know the most about myself when I'm not focused on myself. The more I think about it, the more I realize that's why Christ said we should die to self. It wasn't because he wanted us to be impractical or hyper religious. He just knew we'd be happier that way. Personally, I know that the most miserable times in my life have been when I was focused on myself. It's not that I'm saying thinking of survival is evil - it's just that, that's exactly what it becomes. Merely survival. I don't want to die a survivor - limping away from a burning, mangled plane to God with my heart barely beating, eyes gouged, and arms blown off. I don't want to squander all my time here and then say at the end, "Sorry, I know I could've flown...but I settled."

I want to live. And the only way to live is to not be forever fixated on my own survival. I am always most alive when I am helping others to be alive as well, teaching them how to see beyond themselves. Into the depths of worth and beauty and possibilities. And then they, too, can live. Once we realize that self-preservation can never be more than that, then we open up ourselves - our LOVE - to a world that desperately needs us. A world that is just as lonely as we are.

If we are all alone - which we are - then, really, no one is.