Live Intentionally // mini essay
If you wake up, that means you are alive. Which means you have choices to make - in everything you do. In other words, you have the power to alter the world, yourself, and the people around you.
Every day you wake up, you are presented with different paths. If you woke up, you are alive. Act like it. Live intentionally. Recognize your power in what you can do and recognize what you can not do and do not know. Act alive and build community to learn from other people. This may all seem so obvious (because it is). So why haven't you been living intentionally?
You are alive, so live. You can't be in limbo, doing the same thing every day. You are powerful. You can positively impact the world. You can negatively impact the world. You have the power to hurt the world or heal it, but you can not exist in this world without changing it, for better or for worse, in some way or another.
Everything is balanced so the world has the power to hurt you back. It will do this to survive and, one way or another, it will always survive. Survive with it or fight against it and be destroyed - but you will make that choice repeatedly until you die.
There is always a solution to every problem; otherwise, the human species would've gone extinct a long time ago. You woke up today because you are, metaphorically of course, a puzzle piece, and without you, the puzzle (the universe) is incomplete. Without you, the world is incomplete. Your choices affect everyone and everything. That's magic. That's power. Live intentionally. Be aware of all the choices available and know why you are choosing one over the other. You have the power to be as evil as the most heinous person that has ever existed. Just the same, you also have the power to be the kindest, most gentle, smartest, strongest, and most helpful person alive. You have the power to damage the world, but the world will always survive. If you are here, then you have the option to survive with it.
So will you just pass through, making changes to the world in every step you make, but not choosing what those changes are? Will you pretend you don't have the power of choice? You are firing the gun either way, so might as well open your eyes and aim at something.
Will you be the individual you are? Will you recognize the choices you have and choose one for a real reason? Will you recognize your utter, complete, unique human self?
You have never been made before and you will never be made again. So for this time and this time only, the world is specifically impacted by everything you do, not the other way around. You are here because the universe decided to entrust you with the power of choice. The universe has decided that only you have the skill set and ability to make the choices presented that you just pretend don’t exist. In any way you live, you live. Everything you do, intentional or not, changes the world in a way that no other single person who has lived, in the past, present, or future ever has or will. The impact always stays. When the earth dies and is reborn, it comes alive in such a way that it wouldn't have otherwise if you never stepped foot on it. Simply the way you decided to put on your socks one million years ago has impacted how the new earth is reborn, millions of years later.
By being human and conscious, you have inherent power to change humanity and the world and everyone who inhabits it in any way you desire. Every single thing you do affects everything that happens in the universe. If you affect it negatively, then you have created a world that will treat you poorly. If you impacted it positively, then it will impact you positively back down the road. Everything affects everything.
You choose your destiny. You choose the life you live. You will suffer, but if you are alive, it means there is a solution to be found to whatever your problem is. If there wasn't, you would be dead. To be alive does not mean to simply breathe. To be alive is to have the choice and ability to impact the world in a small or big way. Being alive means being able to experience emotion and creation. Being alive means you are a vital organ to this body that is the world. the world will always survive - that will die and live again, forever. you will take up space either way, so will you be the dry dirt in the ground, creating a barren wasteland, or will you be a beautiful tree that grows and reproduces and creates a whole environment. This is all so obvious and has been said before countless times from kindergarten teachers to great philosophers. But here I am to say it again because, although it is so obvious, why do you choose to ignore it - this magnificent power of choice?
You don't have a say in everything that happens to you, but you always have a choice in what you do with what happens to you. You always will have a choice until death. If there were no choices, then your body would stop functioning, and you would die. But you are alive, so there are choices. Simple. So stop pretending it's so complicated or that you are powerless. Find out what choices you have. uncover every single one of them you could possibly make and realize the consequences, good or bad, of each one and choose. Live intentionally. Make choices on purpose, not just to survive. Otherwise you will convince yourself that you are limited in your choices. You are not and you never have been. Be radical; realize there is more you are able to do than you are allowing yourself to know. Understand you can do anything you want, good or bad. Understand that anything you do will affect everything and everyone, including you. Understand that with each choice comes consequence, good or bad. And with each consequence comes more choice.
So what will you do? What can you do? Are you even aware of all you can do? What will you choose? Who will that make you? Who will you choose to be? And what will you do once you've decided who you are?
First thing - you are here to be someone. You already are someone. Nothing has been the same since the day you were born. Every stone you've stepped on and every tree you've brushed past, nothing you do will or has ever gone unnoticed. Everything you do changes something which, in turn, changes something else. You are the starting link.
If you are alive, then LIVE. Fulfill your purpose of CHOOSING your purpose. You will know what your purpose is because it will bring stability, safety, and joy. It will not feel forced but it won't always be easy. But you will always have the power to make new choices.
You can live with the world and help it grow beautiful. You can fight against it with hate. You can nurture it or you can destroy it. Either way, in the end, you will fertilize its soil. But what that soil grows is dependent on what you did.
When you pass, the world will keep on moving, yes, but while you are here, your actions will forever change the world in a way that it has never been changed before. And it will continually be changed after you're gone - forever and ever because of every choice you made, consciously or not. After your existence, the universe will never live the same way it did before you stepped foot on it.
So what will you do? Your existence, however long it is, will forever change the world and everyone who inhabits it. So, will you change it on purpose, intentionally? Will you live for a reason, thus changing the world for a reason? Or will you deny yourself the magic of choice and desperately try to be anything but human? Will you exist on purpose or will you try to fade into the background, even though everything is a stage. Will you close your eyes when you fire the gun? Or will you open them and aim? Will you even recognize you can put down the gun? Will you recognize your existance at all? Will you realize you are irreplaceable and extremely impactful? Will you make choices on purpose when they are presented to you, or will you look away and make a choice anyway - one that you are unaware of? Will you recognize you have eyes to perceive and to question and to ponder and explore? Or will you walk around with them always closed?
Anything you do impacts the world and the beings that inhabit it. If you live without intention in the choices you make, then you could be destroying the world and the beings in it. You make choices every day and not making them intentionally just creates a gamble that alters everything for better or for worse.
You try to do nothing and then complain about evil. As if you didn't beat the kindness and love within you down by pretending it wasn't an option. As if you didn't recognize the power of choice. As if you didn't make the choice to warm yourself by the fire as it grew and grew. You didn't start the fire, but it warmed you, so you didn't put it out. You didn't make the fire. You could've made it. You could've put it out. But you let it grow. By doing nothing, you made a choice. You chose to create more fire. You can never do nothing.
You never lived in the background. Your actions were never left unnoticed. Every single choice you made changed the choices others are given and still being given to this day. Every single thing you do at every single second affects everything else.
You are not on this earth. You are this earth. You have power of choice. You have power of thought. You have the power to completely change your world in many any ways you desire, and yet you aren't even intentional about the thoughts you have. You act as though the world will pass with or without you. You do this so you are 'off the hook' from being a real person and impacting the world. But that's not the reality of things. This world, as you know it, wouldn't exist without the choices you made and continue to make. The world keeps going, but never left unchanged by your existence.
You create the universe. You are making choices. Why are you pretending you aren't? Why aren't you thinking about the impact they will have? It doesn't matter if you don't care what impact your choices have on others because it will always come back to impact you, too.
Why are you pretending that you aren't the only being that has ever been able to do what you can do and make the choices you make? Why are you lying to yourself that you don't matter. You are breathing. You are perceiving. You have choices to make that only you will ever be able to make. You are the only one who has ever been able to do what you can do. You are powerful. You can be smited and you can smite. You can destroy and you can create. You can experience and learn every single day. You can change and you will change. You are changing. Right now. -- yourself and everyone and everything around you. Whether you do it intentionally or not.
You have the conscious, magical ability to intentionally choose how you impact your universe, so why would you choose to deny yourself of that? What's the point?
Will you destroy and get destroyed back? Will you create and heal? Will you use your magic of intention to add to the never-ending masterpiece that is you and this world? Or will you just try to pass by? Will you try to fade into the background, only to be the star of another show? A show you don't even know you're a part of. Are you comfortable living knowing you were never aware of the grave impact you made during your time on earth. You are meant to be someone. Scratch that, you are someone. Someone who is actively changing everything - in a way that no one has ever been able to before, and in a way that no one ever will be able to again.
If you "do nothing", the world will still be affected accordingly. So if your very existence inevitably always changes the world, then why not choose how it gets changed.
You woke up today. You have choices to make. You have choices you already made. You will make those choices unless and until you die. So live intentionally and impact the world on purpose, since you are going to change it by existing either way. Don't just fulfill your purpose, but decide what your purpose is. Decide why you are here or it will be decided for you. And if you have no more ability to affect the world, then you will die. But if you are alive, it means you have the power to make choices and live intentionally. You have the power to be the person you always were. There are no background characters, just ones you haven't met yet.
Recognize who you are. Recognize your ability to impact everything and anything. With that, also remember anything you affect will affect you back. You can never do nothing. You are always affecting something. Be aware of what your existence is affecting and have a say in your own choices. Your purpose is to live life intentionally. Your purpose is creation through choices.
You are the blood pumping through this earth. You are the ground you walk on. You are the birds you hear. You are the thoughts you recognize. You are the actions you make. You are the power of your intentions. The world will never be the same before you stepped on it, but you have the unique power to decide how it will never be the same. So why aren't you awake for the choices you are already going to make? The universe doesn't decide how your life plays out, you decide how the universe plays out.
Your purpose is to choose how you will forever change this world. So either choose with your eyes closed, unaware of what worlds you're creating, or open your eyes and see just truly how many paths are available for you to go down. And then go down one. With your eyes open.
You're already on a path. Will you choose to follow it or will you switch paths? You have to choose, so choose with intention. Choose with your eyes open and stop pretending you don't exist. You do exist and you have many choices to make. Make them intentionally. Make each one with your eyes open. Make each one for a reason. That's your power. That's your magic. That's your humanity.
And while there's no way to know for certain what effects your choices will have on the world or yourself, shooting a gun with your eyes open usually increases your chances of hitting the target. So, open your eyes when you pull the trigger. Or when you don't and decide to put the gun down all together.
Either way, it's your choice.
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