Living Well
My contribution to a friend's collection of essays on "What is living well?":
Living well? My first gut response tells me that living well means living in a place that pushes me to fight evil and be happy about it all the while, but I get the feeling it might be more complex. After all, that's the trick to life isn't it? Finding a place on Earth where we can truly find peace with ourselves and others yet still battle the darkness. Looking for it takes most of our lives and if we are fortunate maybe only a couple of decades, but most of us just quit looking after a few short years. All that aside, my idea of a life well lived goes a little something like this...
I'm going to stick with finding a place that you love is a key part of living well. My well being has always been attached to the land I'm living on for some odd reason or another. Maybe it's the left over pioneer genes in my blood, or maybe it's just the need a wanderer has for his own home. Either way, my world experiences have taught me that there is nothing that can compare to having a place that always waits for your return. If I can find a spot that nobody else in the world can take or ruin without stepping over my dead body first, then I am living well.
Finding someone to share it with is also difficult. Not only are people vastly different, there are also billions of them. Fortunately, we can narrow the field a bit by subtracting those that want to see us dead, don't speak the same language, and/or the communists. And even still it is hard to find someone to love. We are all too familiar with this problem and much to our chagrin, living well is dependant on love.
Lastly, finding a noble battle to fight is also necessary to living well. Unfourtunately, finding one of these isn't all that tough. Fighting for the side of the oppressed, the weak, or the sick gives a man purpose. Don't get me wrong, it hurts him to do it.. hurts like nothing he's ever felt. But if he has the courage to do it, the pain only lasts a for a fleeting moment. After changing the world a little bit, he can come home to his stretch of land, take some satisfaction in the good he's done, and ask God's grace to cover everything else.
That about covers it. I'd be very grateful if I could end up with those three things... I'd live well.
Living well? My first gut response tells me that living well means living in a place that pushes me to fight evil and be happy about it all the while, but I get the feeling it might be more complex. After all, that's the trick to life isn't it? Finding a place on Earth where we can truly find peace with ourselves and others yet still battle the darkness. Looking for it takes most of our lives and if we are fortunate maybe only a couple of decades, but most of us just quit looking after a few short years. All that aside, my idea of a life well lived goes a little something like this...
I'm going to stick with finding a place that you love is a key part of living well. My well being has always been attached to the land I'm living on for some odd reason or another. Maybe it's the left over pioneer genes in my blood, or maybe it's just the need a wanderer has for his own home. Either way, my world experiences have taught me that there is nothing that can compare to having a place that always waits for your return. If I can find a spot that nobody else in the world can take or ruin without stepping over my dead body first, then I am living well.Finding someone to share it with is also difficult. Not only are people vastly different, there are also billions of them. Fortunately, we can narrow the field a bit by subtracting those that want to see us dead, don't speak the same language, and/or the communists. And even still it is hard to find someone to love. We are all too familiar with this problem and much to our chagrin, living well is dependant on love.
Lastly, finding a noble battle to fight is also necessary to living well. Unfourtunately, finding one of these isn't all that tough. Fighting for the side of the oppressed, the weak, or the sick gives a man purpose. Don't get me wrong, it hurts him to do it.. hurts like nothing he's ever felt. But if he has the courage to do it, the pain only lasts a for a fleeting moment. After changing the world a little bit, he can come home to his stretch of land, take some satisfaction in the good he's done, and ask God's grace to cover everything else.
That about covers it. I'd be very grateful if I could end up with those three things... I'd live well.
posted by Medpilot at 10:21 PM
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