Choose Life

Choose Life
Choose a job
Choose a career
Choose your family
Choose a flippen' big television
Choose washing machines, cars, Cd players and electrical tin openers
Choose buying leisure wear and matching luggage
Choose a three piece suit in a range of funky fabrics
Choose DIY and wondering who the heck you are in the Sunday morning
Choose sittin' on the couch watching mind numbing game shows
Stuffin' junk food into your mouth
Choose routin' away , pishin' in a miserable home, an embarrassment to the selfish brats you spawned to replace yourself
Choose your future
Choose life.
I choose not to choose life
I choose something else

                                                                                      Choose Life – Trainspotting

 

Life; we all query the meaning of it, wonder what our role is in it, appreciate the fragility of it and want to live out more of it. We want to live it to the max, get everything out of it, squeeze it dry, so by the time we leave it we have given it all we’ve got and left it wanting us, we want to go with a sense of a job well done, a game well played a race well run.

I have bungy jumped, skydived, ran a marathon, 2 triathlons, 1 ‘hell’ run and completed the powerman challenge.  I’ve been to New Zealand, fiji, LA, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Amsterdam, Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, Poland, Belgium Germany and Italy.  I’ve lived in 3 different countries, 7 different homes, had 3 different careers, owned 3 cars, 2 houses and 1 fish!  I’ve fallen in love, fallen out if it and nose dived towards it.  I’ve laughed lots, cried more, learn more than I studied and studied more than I partied. :/ According to Ewan McGregors monolog I chose life. Indeed I did.  But I’ve got a bone to pick with Ewan McGregor – I’m not satisfied!

I’ve even ‘got religion’ right? And still not satisfied.

I’m not satisfied, I don’t feel full! BUT, nor do I ever want to be, and neither do you. 

Imagine true satisfaction – not wanting anything, having everything, knowing absolutely everything, being able to do everything, not needing anyone! How aweful! What would you do?!  You’d be bored! You’d have no drive for anything and not need to do anything.

Actually life’s secret is about realising that you will NEVER know it all NEVER have it all, NEVER feel utterly satisfied and NEVER not need others.  Doesn’t sound too appealing does it?  Of course not, we are conditioned to think that if we have it ALL we will then be truly satisfied, utterly happier and better than the guy next to us. But it’s a lie!

There is nothing more liberating than knowing that you’ll never have it all, know it all, be it all, and be all you need – NEVER!  Once you accept that, you can chill out and stop trying to attain it through strife and grief.  That doesn’t mean you don’t go after it – I still want to learn, want to be fitter, want to get married, want to do more and experience more, but my drive is out of sense of adventure and wanting to do it not out of a striving to ‘get it all’ – there is such liberty, peace and contentment from this!

I said before that knowing Jesus didn’t truly satisfy me, and as I’ve explained this is true. I don’t want to feel satisfied, but I do feel utterly content and truly deeply happy and at peace. Because actually what we seek is not satisfaction it’s acceptance and love and THIS I DO get from Jesus. Once you know that you have utter value and lovability for who you are not what you do or what you have, that thing you’ve been striving for gets met . Jesus knew what he was saying when he said “I have come to give you life in abundance” He follows this up with advice on leaving your possessions, feeding the poor, consider others more valuable than yourself, live simply, be compassionate… He knows that LIFE in ABUNDANCE is actually in having very little and being content in who you are in God, not by having much and be left wanting more.

I chose not to choose life, as this world would have me believe, I chose something else.  Will you?