What’s a moment in your life that made you feel truly alive?
Sometimes we only recognise the moments that made us feel alive after they have passed.
This question resonates with me right now in a way that makes me feel like I am not myself anymore.
This is not me. No, no. But somehow, it is still me.
The funny thing about emotions is that, regardless of how you feel inside, they don’t immediately change your reality. Life continues. The sun rises. People go to work. Bills still need to be paid. Responsibilities don’t disappear simply because you are struggling internally. I don’t even feel like writing at the moment.
I have a long list of blog posts waiting to be written, so it’s not as if I have run out of things to say. And that doesn’t mean these prompts aren’t important. They are.
But lately, I’ve been dealing with anxiety about past experiences, uncertainty about the future, and disappointment over some of life’s shortcomings and failed dreams.Sometimes, those things become so loud that they make you forget your successes.
You remember what went wrong but forget what went right.
It is a natural part of being human. But when such feelings linger for too long, they can become frightening and difficult to escape.
Yet life has also given me many moments when I felt completely alive.Moments when I felt on top of the world.Moments so beautiful that I wished I could experience them again.
Perhaps those moments are part of the reason I keep going today.
I may not remember every moment of happiness from my early years, but as I have grown older and become more self-aware, I have started attaching greater value to things I once considered ordinary.
Sometimes you don’t know what you have until you lose it.We hear that phrase so often that it almost sounds like a cliché. But perhaps we should take it more seriously.
Maybe you have never stopped to appreciate your current situation because the world keeps telling you to aim higher.You should earn more.
Achieve more.Buy more.Become more.
There is nothing wrong with ambition. We should aspire to a better future.
But you can aspire for more while appreciating what you already have.
You can want a better life and still recognise that the life you currently have contains moments worth celebrating.
There have been many moments in my life when I felt truly alive.
I remember travelling home from Europe for the first time to see my late parents in the village.
I remember reaching certain levels of financial independence. And alsoI remember becoming a father for the first time.
Each of those moments felt special;But perhaps I didn’t appreciate them enough while I was living them. The most remarkable of all, however, was having my family together. My wife and children under the same roof.
Those ordinary days—despite the struggles, responsibilities and imperfections—gave me something I didn’t fully understand at the time.
They made me feel alive.
They made me feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be but Life, however, does not always move in a straight line.
We aspire for a better future, but along the way we encounter failures, difficulties and circumstances that can take us further backwards than we ever imagined.
And when that happens, something strange happens. You begin to look backwards and start
remembering the things you once had.
The people who were there and places you once called home. You remember moments you once considered ordinary.And suddenly, you realise:
Those were the moments when you were alive.
My parents are no longer here.
I am away from home.
I have been away from my family for a while.
Financially, I find myself trying to rebuild things I once thought were already established.
Perhaps this gives you a little insight into why this question resonates with me so deeply.
I am not really in the mood to write tonight.
But I couldn’t ignore a good question when it presented itself.
And perhaps that is another moment of being alive—having the ability to recognise something meaningful even when life doesn’t feel particularly meaningful at that moment.
The interesting thing is that I have been in difficult circumstances before and somehow, I survived them.Eventually, better moments came;
That gives me hope that the moments ahead of me can be greater than anything I have experienced before.But this time, I want to recognise them while they are happening.
I want to appreciate the laughter while I am laughing,The presence of family while we are together.The small victories while they are still small and ordinary days before they become memories.
Because perhaps being alive isn’t always about experiencing something extraordinary.
Sometimes, it is simply about recognising the extraordinary value of an ordinary moment.
So, if you are reading this, don’t wait until you lose something before you realise its value.
Look around you.
Look at the people beside you.
Look at what you have achieved.
Look at how far you have come.
You can still dream about tomorrow.
You can still work toward something greater.
But while you are doing that, please don’t forget to appreciate today because one day, today might be the moment you desperately wish you could live again.
Appreciate your moment while you are still living it.
