How you livin'?

Have you ever heard of a story about a person who survived an suicide attempt?  They often realize that they wanted to live after all.  Kevin Hines jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in 2000 at the age of 19 is part of the less than 1% who jump and have survived this drop since 1937 when the bridge was completed.  He is now an advocate for depression assistance and suicide prevention.  He, like many many others, were in such a desperate place that it felt like he had no other choice but to take his own life in response to the dealing with the difficulties of life.  I've experienced some really difficult times, even to the point where I felt like maybe I'd be okay with not living anymore.  Thankfully, I was never in a place where I felt the only answer (or even just an option) was suicide, even to the point where I would even consider it.  So for someone to be in such a dark place that they feel like there is no other choice, it's remarkable to me that they can so quickly come back from that dark place once they recognize the permanence of suicide while in the midst of the attempt.  Jon Kabat-Zinn, an expert in mindfulness, has explained in his lectures that people who have near-death-experiences often describe the result of it 'waking them up.'  The reality of death has brought these people to the realization of what life is really about.  I'm sure everyone's experience is a little different, but it seems that the common thread is that when someone is forced to move away from focusing on the leaves of our lives (all the little problems, annoyances, and difficulties) we can more clearly see the forest (the overall beauty of being alive and being lucky enough to be living our own unique lives with each other).  I can only really speak from my own experience, but that's the best experience that I've been encountering since I was born 38+ years ago, but working through this in this blog post helps me to remember that those times when I was going through difficult stuff, it was because I was focusing really hard on certain things, like a really rough break-up or difficulties at work.  I really have to work to force myself to step back and see the trees and then the forest to sort of snap out of it.  The really struggle to strive to make this such a strong habit that it becomes more natural to live this way and remember to say close to what's really important in my life.

Keep showing up

I don't know where I heard it, but I remember the statement, "It's the hardest thing in the world to 'show up'!"  I've been learning more and more about this as I continue to live this unique life of mine that no one anywhere else is living.  Now, off the bat, it's easy to just think of this from the perspective of being a performing musician for many years and hearing from friends or acquaintances how they are coming to an upcoming show of mine that I may happen to mention.  "Oh, I'll come to that!"  I'd say of all the times I've heard that from people, probably 15% of the time, they would actually be there when they said they would.  Ultimately, it's not a huge deal because I've become so desensitized to it....  So much so that when a friend actually does show up, it is a huge deal for me.  But more and more, I'm recognizing that everything in life is about "showing up."  In every situation that we are involved with, we are "showing up."  Getting out of bed and just making your bed as the first task of your day sets the tone for a productive day and can act as a visual representation "that the little things in life matter.  If you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big things right."  (Admiral McRaven, Univ. of Texas commencement speech, Youtube Video)  It's also a great way of to start your day with a feeling of accomplishment, starts off productivity, sets up your bed to be a decluttered space and makes your room look cleaner, which some research shows contributes to reduced stress levels, and helps develop good habits (Pauline Morrissey, online article from Domain).  Just getting up and doing your bed is "showing up."  Making a pot of coffee to start your day with a book or a journal entry is "showing up."  Even just getting to the point where you make time to write a blog post, that most definitely is "showing up".  Of course, I'm not even going to mention getting to your job every day to make the needed money to be financially able to "show up" to pay your bills every month because that's a little too obvious.  But making time to be with loved ones, whether it requires a walk across the street, a drive across town, or a flight across the country, is essential to having a fulfilling life.  And it's all "showing up"!  I have family who live within 15 minutes of driving from each other who do not see each other as much as I see them individually because they choose to not see other very often.  That is their choice, of course, but a choice I do not agree with, because there will be a time when we are all not able to "show up" for one reason or another, and we may regret that we didn't "show up" when we had the opportunity.  If you don't make the time to "show up" to all these situations, it seems to me that you are really missing out of some important aspects of what it means to "show up" to the important stuff in life, whether big or small.  It's easy to make excuses to not "show up".  Instead, I'm trying really hard to come up with reasons why "showing up" is necessary to living the life that I really want (and deserve) to live.