Living or just keeping the body alive?

Living or just keeping the body alive?

People don't live, most of you, you don't live,

you're just keeping the body alive.

That's not life.

You're not living until it doesn't matter a tinker's damn to you whether you live or die.

At that point you live.

When you're ready to lose your life, you live it.

But if you're protecting your life, you're dead.

If you're sitting up there in the attic and I say to you,

"Come on down!" and you say,

"Oh no, I've read about people going down stairs.

They slip and they break their necks; it's too dangerous."

Or I can't get you to cross the street because you say,

"You know how many people get run over when they cross the street?"

If I can't get you to cross a street, how can I get you to cross a continent?

And if I can't get you to peep out of your little narrow beliefs and convictions and look at another world, you're dead, you're completely dead; life has passed you by.

You're sitting in your little prison, where you're frightened;

you're going to lose your God, your religion, your friends, all kinds of things.

Awareness

Anthony de Mello