"Life" is precious - let's not externalize it
Life is us.
When we share a challenge or a difficult experience, the response we often hear is an effort to provide a pithy reminder of how life works in general. There are lots of examples that we’ve heard over and over:
That’s life.
Life is messy.
Life is difficult.
Life is unfair.
Life happens.
Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.
You have to live your life on life’s terms, not on your terms.
That’s the way it goes…things are going well, then life comes along and gives you a swift kick.
You have to be prepared to have life knock you down every few years.
Although I knew from early childhood that life was not perfect, these statements always troubled me. First, I felt that they were dismissive; that others didn’t want to listen to me; that my pain was trivial; that my story was irrelevant; that I was being relegated to invisibility. Second, because my family situation was traumatic and unpredictable, I was aching for reassurance. I wanted to feel some hope that things would be calmer. I wanted to look forward to what might happen next instead of wondering what new drama would unfold. I wanted to be able to count on something. Third, these quick philosophical summaries were too often conversation stoppers — that’s the way it is, nothing you can do, no use dwelling on it, get over it.
In addition, these statements didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t understand why people referred to “life” as an external entity that was lying in wait to rip the rose-colored glasses off our faces, remind us not to raise our hopes too high, and break our hearts. What are “life’s” terms? Why was “life” a metaphor for something that would unexpectedly jump out of the bushes, wrestle us to the ground, and leave us bruised and bleeding? I didn’t want to live with what to me felt like a “Lifezilla “metaphor.
For years, I tried unsuccessfully to define a more positive and comforting concept of “life,” while not denying its imperfection.
That changed when I was faced in middle age with two life-threatening illnesses: A kidney infection that had gotten into my bloodstream, followed a few years later by a serious intestinal condition that required major surgery.
Fortunately, I survived and recovered from both illnesses. My life had been saved. I was alive. And after some lifestyle changes that included major changes to my diet, I was enjoying far better health.
So what did “life” mean to me now? Life was my life — part of the collective experience of what we all are — our humanity. And it was something else: health. Before the challenge of two serious illnesses, I took health for granted. Not any more. To me now, health is life — it’s what makes me feel fully alive. It is precious to me.
Although there will never be perfection in this world, because no human being is perfect, we can have a better world. Although “life” can’t be fair 100 percent of the time, we can make it a lot fairer. We can’t make things perfect, but we can make them kinder, more just, more compassionate, and more uplifting when tragedy, loss, and injustice occur. “Life” is our lives. It is us — and that is too precious to externalize.