{"id":47150,"date":"2022-06-19T12:43:03","date_gmt":"2022-06-19T12:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=47150"},"modified":"2022-06-19T12:43:10","modified_gmt":"2022-06-19T12:43:10","slug":"about-the-life-you-could-have-been-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/06\/19\/about-the-life-you-could-have-been-living\/","title":{"rendered":"About the life you could have been living."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Look!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The life we\u2019re living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re in the middle of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, on the left side, you see that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the life you’re SUPPOSED to be living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you look closely it\u2019s on the right side too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And below, and above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The life we\u2019re supposed to live, the life we COULD HAVE BEEN living, the life we\u2019re worthy of living, is everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everywhere, but here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s actually nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it fucks us up just as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve talked about this many times before, but it can\u2019t be discussed and detonated enough, so I\u2019m mentioning it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The life we could be living doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can dream about it, you can work towards it, and you can use it as a goal or a carrot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s okay to change your life and to want it different than it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can even be inspiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But changing your life is not the same as hating your life because you compare it to something that doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first thing makes sense (and is actually the way life works anyway), the second one is just a perfect recipe for misery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the unlived life is as real as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unlived five inches taller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unlived 10 kilos less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unlived fairytale childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unlived professional tennis career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unlived exhibition of your paintings that sell for millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it\u2019s not there, it\u2019s not there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s probably a distance between where you are right now and where and what you’d like to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just don\u2019t turn that discrepancy, that imaginary gap, into a stick to beat yourself up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s only so much inspiration in being angry with yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frustration burns out pretty quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And punishing yourself because reality doesn\u2019t align with your wishes or dreams, is simply stupid, harsh, and painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So… here\u2019s the life you\u2019re living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the only one you have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s precious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re precious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @astrobobo, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look! The life we\u2019re living. It\u2019s here. Right here. We\u2019re in the middle of it. And then, on the left side, you see that? It\u2019s the life you’re SUPPOSED to be living. If you look closely it\u2019s on the right side too. And below, and above. The life we\u2019re supposed to live, the life we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47151,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[99,102,97,117,100,115,116,113,107,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47152,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47150\/revisions\/47152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}