--- title: "You Are Living, Are You ALIVE?" description: "A check-in for the seasons when the months add up and you haven't felt engaged in your own life." author: "Rahim Rasul" type: "Podcast episode" series: "Halftime Talks" episode: 38 published: "2015-01-27" duration: "10 min" theme: "Appreciation and perspective" tags: "mortality, time, purpose, living fully" audio: "https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT038_SquanderedLife.mp3?dest-id=175061" url: "https://iloveprocess.com/halftime/you-are-living-are-you-alive/" site: "I Love Process" --- # You Are Living, Are You ALIVE? _A check-in for the seasons when the months add up and you haven't felt engaged in your own life._ **The question:** Are we alive inside? Listen: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT038_SquanderedLife.mp3?dest-id=175061 ## Before you listen This one is dedicated to each of us living. Early in 2015 I had already seen people my age, younger and older, pass away. We've all had seasons when something blinded us and the months added up while we weren't engaged in life. When we reach the end, will we have lived? The talk is about not squandering your life. I remember a scene in School Daze where the guys walk out of a KFC after a run-in with locals and leave their food on the table. We do that with our lives. In the spring of 2003 I totaled my car in Atlanta and saw death over my shoulder. I made a pledge that when my time comes, I'll be able to laugh on my deathbed because I lived a full life. Listen for the closing turn, where easy platitudes like seize the moment come down to something smaller: daily habits and choices you have access to right now. ## From the talk > Since a future now will still be now, we might as well make this now the most important now. > > I will be able to laugh on my death's bed because I've lived a full life. > > We must be the stewards of our time, we must be the stewards of our passion, we must be the stewards of our life. ## Sit with this - How do we invest in ourselves, invest in our life, so that we find ourselves alive? - How do we honor that gift? How do we say thank you each day? - Are we pushing ourselves to that limit that we know that we have? ## Transcript I'm really happy to be here and I'm sharing an episode with you that's for the last day or so has been really on my heart. I don't want to sound too grim. But 2015 has already been a year that I've seen individuals my age younger and older, pass away. And I know the season of life has its births, and it's deaths. And one of the things one of the reasons I created halftime talks is to have this dialogue have this conversation about life, and the middle of your game of life. Life is the essence of what we're talking about. And I don't want to sound grim. Like I'm saying, let's worry about death, because it's absolutely the opposite. We are all guaranteed to leave this planet leave this physical plane of existence. But are we guaranteed to have a life are we guaranteed to live. And so in today's episode, I'm going to be exploring the ideas around not squandering your life. So I remember growing up and I remember vividly watching, it's gonna sound funny, but I remember watching school days. And it was a scene when they all went to the KFC, Laurence Fishburne and and some other guys, they're hanging out in KFC. And there were some locals there. And they got into some locals who, obviously they thought they were invading their town. But that's not the point. The point of the story is after that confrontation, they left their food on the tables. And it's like they ordered it, they wanted to eat it and then left it. Now this example while trying and trivial. It may seem illustrates, we're just walking away from our lives. We're squandering our lives sometimes like these guys squandered some food. How do we invest in ourselves invest in our life so that we find ourselves alive? At the most critical time and the most critical time to be alive. It's now in a year, I'll say the same thing. Now. When you look at your watch what time does it say, now, it'll always be now. So since a future now will still be now we might as well make this now, the most important now. Now, when I bring up this idea of squandering our lives, I go back to a time in my life. It was the spring of 2003. I had moved to Atlanta and I totaled my car and I actually saw the possibility of death right over my shoulder. And it was it was a critical juncture in my life. It was a critical juncture in my life, because it showed me one thing, I'm I want to be alive. And I want to relish and take advantage, full advantage of all the gifts that this life had to offer. And I made a pledge to myself, I made a pledge to myself that I think about routinely monthly yearly, is that when my time is over on this planet, be it next year or 50 years, 60 years, 40 years, whatever that time may be, I will be able to laugh on my death's bed because I've lived a full life. I've lived a life that I can share with my family, my friends, my community, and I didn't leave anything on the table. So often we look at time and don't realize how precious time truly is. Time is more are precious than money. Because you cannot save it up and spend it later, you can hit the lottery of time when you're, you're miraculously granted access of time. Time is like saying held in your hands, it's going to pour out over time. And what have we done with this time is the critical thing. Sometimes we invest time in other people's passions, and nothing's wrong with that. But if we're not investing in our own passions, in our own lives, if we're not adding to the story of our lives here, and now, no matter what that may be, if our passion is helping others and help others, if your passion is doing any gram great project, then do it. Now that sounds simple, but the magic in saying do it. I'm also at the same time saying, know what not to do. Emoto, the great philosopher, coined the term the poetic phrase, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you shall die, eat, drink, be merry, live. Take on the abundance, the beauty, the majesty of this world right now, while we're invested physically in this world, sometimes we take on projects that might take four months, that is life training. Sometimes we we entertain people that aren't adding to our purpose, for the sake of cordiality. We must be the stewards of our time, we must be the stewards of our passion, we must be the stewards of our life. If this is all that we get these years, these decades, this half a century possibly are more than how do we honor that gift? How do we say thank you each day. And the best way I know to say thank you, is to live with your life fully on spreading into the world. So not only have you evoked and inspire creativity, not only have you evoked and inspired your possibility, but you've also inspired others to be as bold and direct with their gifts, squandering our lives, we see it so much, five years, 10 years go by and we ask ourselves, how did we live? are we alive inside? Are we pushing ourselves to that limit that we know that we have? I see people my age passing. When I was young, I saw some things that said, man, it's time to live. And it's easy to say these are easy platitudes. Live your life. Seize the moment, don't let time pass you by. But what I want you to do is dive into what they mean. Dive into the implications and the possibilities that what you can become you have access to right now. It isn't this great grand design that stands before you to says you're not allowed here. It's easy. It's daily habits, its choices, its attitudes, its perspectives. We got to live our life man. At the end of our lives. We want to have planned and divinely contributed that gift that God has bestowed us with.