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The Fear Of Not Experiencing Enough

Pain and happiness are living, and I'm scared I won't experience enough of either.

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The Fear Of Not Experiencing Enough
Alex Engel

Our lives, they’re like books. We are the authors, and as we move through life we have to make choices. These choices determine what lies between the beginning and the end of our books. Our lives have many chapters. What we fill these chapters with are up to us and the things around us. Having control over your own life is thrilling but also nerve racking. Especially when you realize that at any given moment we are seconds away from those two words. The End.

The world doesn't care if you're in the middle of a chapter, if you're in the middle of a sentence, hell, it doesn't even care if you started your book. The end can be any time, and regardless of what happens after the end of your book, this story is all that is certain. And you know what scares me? Not that one of my chapters will be cut short. Not that my life won't end with a period, but that the words in my books will be spaced out and dry. My biggest fear is that I will not experience enough.

The world is full of adventures, amazing people, and beautiful places to visit yet I spend most my days sitting behind my comfort zone. It doesn't matter where you live, every day can be an adventure and its out there waiting for you. Even scarier is that doing one thing means you're not doing other things. If you spend your time playing video games you could be missing out on creating something amazing, and you'll never even know it.

All this analogy of your life being like a book and the talk of amazing things may have you thinking my head is in the clouds. While you may be right but I'm not under the illusion that life should be all cake and brownies. Life isn’t living without suffering. Without sadness you cannot have happiness. Without pain you would not value comfort. While I would love to think I have experienced enough pain in my life, I know it isn't enough. I know that Im going to go through worse I have before, and Im okay with that. I welcome it actually. I need it to fill the page.

My life feels like its going too fast but not enough is happening. I want to fill my pages with good and bad. Sure, my book might not become famous, but ill be damned if I don't give my blood, sweat, and tears into those pages to fill every single word with meaning. The rest of my story lays outside my comfort zone underneath hours of hard work. Living is experiencing, wether you experience pain or happiness, and Id rather die living than live having never really lived. After all, you are the only thing that is certain, so don't waste that certainty.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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