The Fuel of Life 1.0: What is the Fuel of Life?

"Life is nothing more than an amalgamation of our experiences and the decisions that we make"

If there is one thing that I've heard in the last few months of my life that I feel rings more true than anything else, it would be this.

Every day that each of us is alive is an opportunity to become a more complete individual. We wake up... we roll out of bed and in front of us lies an endless world of possibility. There is no way out of it. We have the freedom to do whatever it is we please and many of us don't realize that the things we do have the power to completely change the course of the world as we know it.

Be it instant gratification and over stimulation, the pains of living in a corporate society concerned more with streamlining, efficiency and the ever so powerful America dollar than the human condition and morality. Be it credit card debt, the costs of staying healthy or the fact that most of us are living paycheck to paycheck or working 3 jobs between two people just to maintain a sustainable, comfortable life. None the less, something has made us lose sight of the world in front of us.

While I may play the niche as the over analytical person when it comes to my friendships, I think when I say the "fuel of life", I believe everyone can relate to me. The fuel of life is that thing or those things that make you feel alive. It is the event that takes place that make you feel like you're more complete than the person you were before. That gut feeling you get when you meet someone and have a conversation and you know that this person is going to have a signifigance in your life... one way or another. That feeling we get when get done doing something we've just done for the first time. That tingly feeling that runs through your arms and legs. That same feeling you have a taste of when you wake up every morning and become conscious of your surroundings. That feeling you get when you know you've done something you were afraid of or challenged yourself and met that challenge.

If you ask me, the experiences that make people feel the most alive are the ones that challenge us to think differently, to push our own personal limits. The experiences that make us throw almost everything we thought we knew before, out the window to the street below to be swept away and taken to the trash.

Being the kid from a racist family who decides to think for himself and actually try talking to someone his family taught him to fear. Being the person who was always taught to stay within the lines and to not cross the street before looking both ways, and decides to buy a one way ticket to Europe on a whim to confront that condition and learn who you really are. Being raised in a household of staunch Christian values and actually forcing yourself to read the teachings of the Dali Llama or the Koran, or better yet, the teachings of Kant, or Ayn Rand, or Nietzsche so that you can formulate how you feel about things.

As a 26 year old, I feel like a lot of my peers are looking back down the road they've already driven and remembering their early 20s as the most exciting times of their lives. Other people my age are making what I feel is a worse mistake of looking towards the future with fear that the good times are over for all of us. Some people go as far as believing that "life" is over once you turn 30. Wow!!! A third the way to the average life expectancy and you're already giving up.

When did people stop realizing that no matter how old you are, what job your work or what you did 10 years ago with your college buddies, there is still a huge world out there for us to shape for ourselves? There is still a copious amount of conversation to be had, emotions to be felt, decisions to be made, passion to be exuded, responsibility to be taken, and life to be led.

Responsibility.... Ah responsibility... such a simple word to many of us, yet it is the backbone for modern philosophy as I have been exposed to it. We aren't talking about whether or not you took responsibility and went out to apply for a job, or did your homework, or your chores before dinner. Responsibility in the sense that, as far as we know it, we only have this one life to live. We're put on this earth as these amazing individuals who are creative and intelligent. We have an innate ability to decide for ourselves and be unique and whether it be to the social constructs that we've put in place, or be it a lack of passion and desire within us as a people, so many of us have forgotten these things. I talk of the responsibility to realize the power that we have as people and the right we all have to enjoy this life and make it best for ourselves.

Talking to someone over a beer and a campfire and telling them how you truly feel about something and sticking by that. Taking responsibility for our effect on this world around us. Taking responsibility for our emotions and seeing them as a way to grow as a person and embrace this beautiful life around us. When something makes you happy, breaking your mold of fear and fucking going for it, and damn it, I mean GOING FOR IT! The type of going for it that it's almost dangerous with wreckless abandon. The type of "Going for it" that if you happen to not get it, you can still lie face up on your death bed and smile knowing there was nothing else you could do about it cause you fucking went for it. When someone or something makes you unhappy or doesn't pay you the respect granted to every member of this human race, taking that and breaking it apart into little tiny pieces and promising to yourself that you will never sell yourself short like that again. When that voice in your head whispers to you that something is right... listening and trusting. That voice will be with you until you're on that death bed. Make sure that voice is smiling just as wide as you are.

It was another good friend of mine who told me the other day... something like... "Every life is a storybook full of chapters that we write ourselves. We all know the beginning of the story (birth) and we all know the end (death). Writing the rest of the story is the fun part."

We need to stop seeing the end of our story be while we're still alive. I feel like I, along with anyone else of my age, has experienced sooooo much. So many things that we can smile about and be happy that we did, and at the same time, so many things that make us sad when we remember them, but they've all helped mold us into who we are as individuals and if we think for a second that the things that are about to happen to us aren't going to do the same, we are doing ourselves a disservice.

We are writing this book as we go. The experiences, the stories, the conversation, the drug experiences, the road trips, the family dinners, the cocktails, the happy hours, the hugs, the favors, the giving of gifts to one another just because, the holidays. If we don't take up the responsibility in ourselves, we aren't writing this story, we're letting our experiences write it for us. By embracing the things that come our way and taking them for what they are, we're getting the ink on our fingers and writing the story ourselves. We're turning our own lives into non-fiction, and god damned good, new york times 10 best seller list non-fiction.

It is scientific law that to have momentum, you have to have force. Maybe we all just need that "push" to keep us moving forward with life like we were when we were younger. Maybe we all need a bit of the "fuel of life".

Start a bonfire and have a conversation, turn on some music, turn the lights down low and actually listen to an entire album, sit in the grass and take a nap in the middle of the park by the ocean, give someone a hug, talk to someone you don't know much about... or even better..... try talking to someone you don't think you like very much. Do something you've always known you've wanted to do for yourself but have been too afriad to do. Talk to someone your family taught you to be afraid of, drive down a road that you are unfamiliar with. Do something that makes you feel... Alive!