The Strength of Living

So, I and dad had a time-out and I saw a poster which states that :

"Is what you're living for worth dying for?"

As he (dad) was driving past the said sign, it occurred to me how strongly that question clashes with my personal beliefs. It's pretty easy to die for something. For all the praise a man would rightfully receive for jumping in front of a bus to save a stranger, I don't think that split-second decision would be a difficult one for a man to make. Who wouldn't go out as a hero, given the chance?

I mean, the average person devalues him or herself. On a personal level, people dislike themselves more intensely and deeply than they've ever held such feelings for another human being. Oh, sure, there are moments when they feel good about themselves, but those moments are fleeting and relatively rare. In almost all cases, those moments are brought on by praise from another person; people don't naturally feel good about themselves.

I'd go so far as to say people hope for a chance at that one, final, shining act of selflessness. They want to lay themselves down and finally leave the agonizing, day-to-day monotony of their miserable lives behind them - just as soon as they've done something worthy of earning their rest. So, yeah, it's easy to die for something, given the chance. There are a lot of things people consider to be worth dying for.

It's living for something that takes strength. People go to work every day just to earn money to feed their families, and then they come home to distract themselves with the things they've bought to offset the meaninglessness of it. That's it. Over, and over, and over again.

Get up, eat breakfast, commute, work, eat lunch, work, commute, eat dinner, distractions, sleep.

Get up, eat breakfast, commute, work, eat lunch, work, commute, eat dinner, distractions, sleep.

Get up, eat breakfast, commute, work, eat lunch, work, commute, eat dinner, distractions, sleep.

There's nothing to strive for. No sense of purpose. So what is it that they're living for? Why do they keep putting one foot in front of the other, when they can't even see if they're making any progress? When they don't even know what they're working toward?

People are living for hope, love, or both. They live for the tired smiles on their partners' faces when they finally step back through the front door. They live for the moment their children run up and wrap their arms around their legs, saying how much they missed them. They live for the chance that maybe, someday, they'll find adventure in the monotonous grind of their day-to-day lives, or find peace in the chaos of the other side of life. They live for the hope of something better, or the hope not to lose what they have. It sounds like a beautiful, simple truth, and it is, but people lose themselves in the poetic stuff and forget that it's still hard.

It takes strength to push through each stressful, tiring day, running only on the desire to find a better future. It takes strength to keep walking forward, your only drive being the love you hold for another, or the hope to one day be loved by another. It takes strength to live for love and hope, because you can't gain more of either; you can only try your best not to lose them.

It takes strength to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and ignore the scars and wrinkles; people do it without so much as a thought in complaint. It takes strength to forget the mistakes and obligations that weigh on your shoulders - just long enough to crack a smile. It takes unbelievable strength to laugh off the world's slights and move on with your life.

It is much, much harder to live for something than it is to die for something. Most people don't realize how strong they are; some don't even realize what it is they're putting all the effort toward. People bear the weight of the world on their shoulders every day, and they think themselves weak and worthless for it. They don't see that just standing up straight makes them strong. They don't see that just putting one foot in front of the other makes them valuable.

The answer to the question posed at the beginning of this piece, for every single person who reads it, is yes, whether they believe it or not.

If it wasn't, they wouldn't be reading it.