A beating heart and oxygen are things obviously needed to be alive as human beings. However, being alive and actually feeling alive are two vastly different ideas. These two words may seem interchangeable on the surface, but I see them as incredibly distinctive.

Being alive is what wakes you up in the morning. Being alive causes you to feel aching hunger and desperate thirst. Being alive is simply what keeps you moving each day.

But feeling alive is what gets you out of bed in the morning. Feeling alive is what makes you crave more from your life—more to see, more to feel, more to experience. Feeling alive is what keeps you curious and excited for every tomorrow.

This feeling of truly living stems from tremendously diverse experiences, depending on the person. There are a few times when I, personally, have never felt more alive.

Climbing nearly 2,000 feet to the top of Angel's Rest.

Even though I was exhausted from the rocky ascent and dripping sweat, it is fairly impossible to voice any complaints standing on the bouldered cliffs with the Columbia River Gorge painted across your vision. I do not use the term breathtaking loosely, but it very honestly can take your breath away standing there with such a captivating view in front of you.

Waking up at 4 in the morning to see hot air balloons take off.

Standing amidst a field of hot air balloons inflating and igniting and lifting off into the air as the sun is beginning to peak out from beyond the horizon line placed me into an outright state of awe. Waiting beneath these monstrous hot air balloons and then watching as they dot the morning sky has truly never made me feel smaller, and more alive.

Encircling the fire pit beneath the Sunriver night sky.

If you know me, then you know that I tend to talk a lot. But, nothing has ever shut me up quicker than sitting underneath the thousands of stars visible throughout the Sunriver skies on a clear night. The emotions exploding from that absolute silence are difficult to explain without having experienced that moment on your own, but I can tell you that in that moment I felt incredibly alive.

The Watershed country music festival.

Whether you are an attendee of Watershed, Paradiso, or Sasquatch, we can all simultaneously acknowledge the undeniable beauty of the Gorge Amphitheater. Bundled in the pit absorbing the artistry of the performers or sitting atop the hill taking in the view of the main stage with the river and the valley running behind it, these are moments worth living for.

Sadly, it can seem easy to wander passively through your own day to day life, simply being alive. But, simply being alive is not what gives you these incredible feelings of authentic exhilaration and contentment. Feeling genuinely alive comes from the emotions you allow during these experiences, however different your own experiences of truly feeling alive may be from mine. So, do not live to plainly be alive. Live to honestly and wholeheartedly feel alive.