Have you ever just sat down and thought about life? This is something I personally have grown to value more and more as my life unrolls like a fruit roll-up haha. Thinking about the vastness of life has helped me put things into a healthy perspective. I was recently talking with a friend about certain areas of life that we both were choosing not to think about just because it was easier in that moment than facing our adversity head on. I found this realization to be sad as we both were choosing passivity and a small consistent pain rather than dealing with the issue and eliminating the producer of our agony. I hope you enjoy the following five reasons why everyone should think about the meaning of life.

Man standing on mountain overlooking the valley.

If you haven’t gone off the deep end it means you are in the shallow end. Let’s be honest, who really wants to be shallow? I know I don’t, but it seems that there is a culture conscientiously deciding to turn their brains off because it would take to much work to actually think. I remember having a conversation with a classmate from my college era and he made a statement along the lines of this “Tim, I don’t know why you ask those questions I find it easier to just not think about it.” His statement stunned and stuck with me because I could not understand why he would not want to ask the harder questions about life. I personally found peace in thinking about the "deeper questions" of life. I believe there is no risk in staying in the shallow end of thought and that is what's so attractive about it. What side of the camp do you sit on? Do you not want to think about life? Why?
You will appreciate life more. The further I dive into the art of photography I find such a fascination with light and the composition of trying to tell people the story of how I perceive the world, but you see, if I chose to not sit down, think about why I love photography, study and read it I would not appreciate it nearly as much as I do now. I believe life is the same way. If you can embrace it to the fullest, a deep sense of appreciation and wonder will fill your life. It is almost like choosing to step back in the shoes of a childlike mentality and just gazing in awe of the world which surrounds you.
You start to see patterns. If we choose to take the time to think about life and what has happened to the people before us, without fail we will start to see patterns and signs of what may or may not happen in our future. I am not saying you will suddenly turn into Sherlock Holmes and be able to know everything about the most minute details and what the outcome will be. What I am saying though is in taking the time to think about life and learn what has happened to people before us, we will start to see patterns that possible will not catch us off guard. It’s like if we were to watch ten classic scary movies and when we go to see the eleventh one, we will only be startled by something new and we will know what to expect for the most part. Researching people from the past and present will help you grow in being able to recognize events possibly before they happen and it also will help us find some inspiration of what we may or may not want to do with our own lives.
It’s good to know what you actually think. This may seem simple and on some levels it is, but the bottom line is, it’s the truth. Sometimes all it takes is realizing we think life sucks to actually take the time to change that feeling. What if we never chose to think about it? How long would we go on ignoring something that is totally within our power to fix? It’s like feeling a pain in our foot but just blatantly ignoring it, whereas if we chose to think about it and observe why we felt the pain we might come to find out there was a nail in our foot that could have been pulled out weeks ago before it got all infected. Needless to say, think about life and know why you think it!
Thinking about the meaning of life imparts a respect for humanity. The more I personally have been on a journey to think and observe my own life I have found a much more well-rounded respect and perspective of the world I am immersed in. I see the humanity in those around me easier and I do not carry nearly as many unrealistic expectations for the world. It is almost like the more I think about life it helps me realizing truths I will never forget. I think they can be as obvious, impactful, and easily exposed, for example, Santa was really just my parents or the tooth fairy wasn’t real. Sadly there are allot of things which people believe that are on par with those type of fairy tales, so if you only choose to think and seek truth you might expose some of those outlandish lies! Think about life, realize the lies, embrace yours and others humanity, and be a more well-rounded person.

I hope these simple reasons get you to think about life in a whole new way. If you have some time share your thoughts in the comments below or send me an email!

Cheers,

Timothy

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The Start

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