Half alive, half dead

There's a state a lot of people live in without ever naming it. You're not really living, but you're not dying either. You're half alive and half dead.

No one is here to tell you how to live. That's number one. You need to decide for yourself exactly how you want to live, and know that your decision dictates exactly how your life turns out. Because the way you live strongly influences the thoughts you have about yourself.

Let's keep it simple. You have a messy room, a messy environment, and naturally your thought about yourself is: I'm a messy person. So at work, your desk is probably disorganised too. Not just the physical desk where you sit, but the desktop on your computer, with files everywhere. How you do anything is how you do everything.

There is a way you operate, and it's grounded in your identity, the self you choose to show, so you can act in this world, figure out who you are, and enjoy life. If you don't figure this out, you're stuck in limbo. Not really living, but waiting. Not because you'd ever end your life, you know better. But you're half alive and half dead.

I remember going to work at a job I despised, because of the corporate facade people put on, and the fakeness that destroyed any semblance of real connection. I hated it, to be honest, but I went to work anyway. And I realised that when I'm working, my soul isn't really connected to my body. It's somewhere else. It's like I have to shut out a fundamental part of myself to be able to do this fucking work, work that should already have been replaced by AI.

You're living a life you can't authentically call your own. You struggle to look at yourself in the mirror. You're losing your identity, because you've been swayed by everyone around you: society, your mum and dad, your partner, your kids.

For a lot of men that's hard. Men like to have their own direction. But if they keep being pulled by obligations and doing things they don't actually want to do, that becomes their life. A series of: I don't want to do this, but I have to. It's always the same narrative.

So when are you actually going to do what you want to do? When are you going to stop saying "I want to" and start saying "I am"?

In the spiritual space it goes one step further. Instead of saying you want the car, you say you have it. You want a Porsche 911? You say you have the Porsche 911, and you bathe yourself in the feeling of having it. You operate from that place, instead of dancing around, unsure, not serious about yourself. Get seriously serious about yourself.

And then you realise: hang on a minute. This is actually pretty good. Life is good. I can sort this out.

So here's something to try. Tonight, tidy one thing: your desk, your desktop, one drawer. And while you do it, say out loud one sentence that starts with "I am", about the life you're choosing. That's how you stop being half alive. You decide who you are, and then you live it.