You’re on the couch, chilling, while watching Netflix. What are you doing? Are you just relaxing? Are you snuggling next to your munchkin cat, Eli? Are you winding down your day? There are a lot of answers to those questions that can give us the answers to what we are actually doing when we are Netflix-n’-chillin’. ut there is also a more important question that many are not asking, that can give us an even better answer: What are we not doing?
We aren’t living OUR live. We are living through others’ lives.
Let me explain. When Blair Waldorf is looking hot and having fun, you may feel good, like that’s you. But it’s not. The only thing similar between your lives, is that you are both committing the same time to the specific instance, except she is actually experiencing things, you aren’t. But it feels like it, kinda, right? I mean, when I thought Chuck died, I got really upset and sad. It seriously affected my actual life. (My best friend actually has a voicemail of me crying hysterically because I thought ‘the perfect guy’ was dead.) Crazy, isn’t it? But there was a blur between the life I was ‘living’ through Blair, and my live that I was actually LIVING. I couldn’t differentiate the two any more. Blair’s success, even though I knew it wasn’t, still felt like my success. Her loss, felt like mine. I consciously knew it wasn’t, but subconsciously I didn’t. My mood was still affected by it!
That’s where I think our society has gotten off the tracks. We watch tv and feel so many inspiring moments through others’ lives, that we feel satisfied through their inspiring moments and don’t have an urge to have any of our own. There is so much action and passion in the movies that we lack it in our own lives. Where are the interest and hobbies we used to love but replaced with “How I Met Your Mother”? It’s disrespectful to ourselves not to live our own life. We aren’t giving our own life the attention it needs to thrive. I know I’ve done it, and you may have to. It may not be TV, but maybe a significant other you spend too much time on. Or anything else that distracts you from living your life to the fullest.
Get back in touch with your inner child, the most honest and fun version of yourself. Don’t do homework for a day and just try something for that whole day. Go out and buy art supplies and just paint. Or go take a photography class. Immerse yourself in it.
Or read! Here are some of the best books ever written!
I promise, truly living your own life is thousands of times better than living anyone else’s. It may take more work, but the payoff is genuine and real.