Did I shock you with this title? I know. It’s a very in-your-face way of expressing myself. But…I meant what I said. I don’t want to die before I’m dead.

What does it mean though? To me, it means living life to the fullest, regardless of chronological age and/or life challenges. For example, over the last several years, I have sometimes struggled with the worry that life wouldn’t be the same once I turned fifty. 
In reality, it hasn’t. In some ways, things have begun to show some signs of aging, a little arthritis here and there, a few more grays here and there, eyesight that’s not quite as clear as before…this is reality. Physical reality…some which I can influence and some which I cannot.

 
As important, and possibly more important, is the perspective I adopt. This is about emotional health and the way in which I choose to step forward. And…stepping forward is a choice. A CHOICE. I’m not forced to look ahead. I could look down. And where would that get me? A place firmly rooted in the right now, with little to no chance for growth and possibilities. That is being dead before I die. 

Sometimes, if we allow concerns to abound, unchecked, we can stagnate or deteriorate. Recently, I read an article about avoidant coping – essentially, a way in which we cope with challenges by avoiding them in one way or another. Confronting a challenge is hard, no question, and that can provoke a stress reaction which is uncomfortable…and human beings don’t like discomfort. Avoidant coping is, in other words, avoidance of discomfort. However, that is an illusion and short-lived. There’s a popular catch phrase you may have seen on Instagram, Facebook, inspirational memes etc: what you resist persists. So true…

Are there ways in which you find yourself circling around in negative or self-limiting thought patterns? Have you had difficulty or inability moving forward? If you knew you could tolerate the discomfort associated with change, what would you do?

(photo credit: Anita Navala)