At various points in our lives we find ourselves asking this all too universal question: Is it worth it? While more often than not we may be able to come up with a few answers, there are undoubtedly times when we cannot. As conscious beings we have to deal with the immense psychological weight of being alive.

Whether due to circumstance, chance, or even out of habit our paths are often beset by distress on top of more distress. To suffer is to be alive but to suffer is also a means of growth, but this is not an individual effort even if it sometimes feels that way. It has often been said that we are 'all of us in this together' but that does not make it any less true, by our very nature we require the company of our fellow beings. Or in the words of Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator "we want to live by each other's happiness not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another."

If we as human beings could live forever then perhaps we would finally transcend much of the day to day existential angst that so often plagues us. However it is not in our biology to live forever, and in truth if we actually had 'all the time in the world' our existence would arguably grow stale whereas mortality brings a level of preciousness to each and every day. It is because of this preciousness that our precarious mortality may be seen less as a curse and more as a blessing.

From our birth until our dismissal we are exposed to the many varying peaks and pitfalls that comprise the rollercoaster that we call life, but it is after all 'just a ride'-Bill Hicks. For every bad day there is a good day waiting to be had, for every sorrow there is joy to be found, and for every tragedy there is a light to be kindled. We have a chance to make this life more than what it has become, we need only seize it, let us-each one of us- be more than we might feel, and let us-each one of us- accomplish more than we might imagine.