“The shortest distance in the world is the one between you and yourself. The space in question is tiny. Yet what goes on in this little space determines nearly everything about the kind of person you are and about the kind of life you are living.”

John O’Donohue

Look in the mirror and you will see the person to whom you have the greatest responsibility: yourself.

No matter who you are or what you do, that is the certainty. You were born in this body, and you will die in it. And everything in between those two immovable shores can, and only ever will be, experienced through the person you irrevocably are. That person in the mirror goes to bed with you, rises with you, and travels with you no matter how far you go.

So how are you treating that person? How are you living your life?

The self-relationship can be the most difficult of all. Learning not only to live, but to live with ourselves, is a lifelong journey. And as long as we live, we need to be aware if we’re truly living.

It’s one thing to be going through the motions as life slips by.

It’s another thing entirely to be living in a way that nourishes your soul.

Henry David Thoreau once said that many people live in quiet desperation. They die with their deepest songs unsung. What is your desperation? What is your song? John O’Donohue’s thought-provoking book, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, explores many parts of the human condition. One of them is the pervasive problem of the unlived life.

“So many people feel deep dissatisfaction and an acute longing for a more real life, a life that allows their souls to come to expression and to awaken; a life where they could discover a different resonance, one which echoes their heartfelt dreams and longing.” — John O’Donohue

I see it often in my work and in my private life. The majority of people I meet seem to be waiting to live, even those who appear successful by today’s arbitrary standards. Somedays I’m one of those people — it’s an easy trap. Putting in the grind and talking about all the things they wish they could be doing, and that someday, maybe, they’ll have time to do. I see so much yearning and feel it in myself. Yearning is like a beautiful songbird. It was never meant to be kept in cage.

Oftentimes it’s not until retirement that people revisit these yearnings, but do we have any guarantee that we will live that long? Or that our health will be conducive to those longings?

I have met patients who had everything — the house, the waterfront villa, the yacht, the luxury cars — and they were too ill to enjoy any of it.

The longer we put off our truest yearnings, the deeper we fall into lives of exile from our deepest selves.

“Most of us are lost or caught in forms of life that exile us from the life we dream of. Most people long to step onto the path of creative change that would awaken their lives to beauty and passion, deepen their contentment and allow their lives to make a difference.” — John O’Donohue

This longing is an invitation into the adventure of an awakened life. It can be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time, yet isn’t that the dream of every heart? To explore what is most captivating and real? So often this sense of adventure is discouraged, even ridiculed. And when our true dreams and yearnings are relegated to scorn and deemed unworthy, it becomes second nature to just coast along.

Inertia, that deadly force, is alive and well in our lives. And when we get caught up in it, we risk losing sight of, even forgetting, our innermost dreams.

“We feel so enmeshed in the life we have that the prospect of change appears remote or impossible. Thus, we continue on the tracks that we have laid down for ourselves. We are unable to think in new ways and we gradually teach ourselves to forget other horizons. We unlearn desire.” — John O’Donohue

The longer we stay on this course, the more years that pass us by, the harder it is to get out of the ruts we dig ourselves into. Over time we succumb to the predictable script of the expected life, toeing the line that everyone else seems to follow. We avoid risks and lose sight of the enamoring pathways we could take, becoming steadfast in the middle way. Despite all those yearnings, we learn to fit into this inertia world with incredible precision — forever.

But is that truly living? It is a life, to be sure, but is it the one you want? By all means, if that is what someone truly desires, then all the power to them, but I think that many people, myself included, are becoming disillusioned with the default life that is forced down our throats.

We realize the life we see is but shadows on the cavern wall, and when we dare to turn around, and bear the ridicule, we find that the cave opens up into the real life, where the sun still shines.

Yet it’s difficult to break out of. Inertia grows a thick, dead shell around us, shielding us from the calling of the unlived life. Sometimes the only thing that can free us is a shattering. A huge crisis or trauma to crack that dead shell that has been growing ever thicker around us. We see it all the time in people who have near-death experiences. It’s as if a curtain is lifted from their eyes, and they can see clearly for the first time:

“Painful as that can be, it does resurrect the longing of the neglected soul. It makes a clearance. Again we can see the horizons and feel their attraction. Though we may wince with vulnerability as we taste the exhilaration of freedom, we feel alive!” — John O’Donohue

Life is short, and none of us are promised tomorrow. While it is important to prepare for the future and live responsibly, we are just as responsible for not putting off our truest lives. Why wait? The longer we wait the deader that horizon becomes. And guess what? The only time you will ever have to nurture your dreams is now. If we let our yearning atrophy and wilt, we suffer a certain kind of death, a soul death.

“Most men die at 27, we just bury them at 72.” — Mark Twain

Twain was certainly right. I do not want to be a dead man walking. I don’t want to die with most of that song unsung. Even if no one else notices it, even if it leads to nothing but unappreciated work, it is nonetheless to pursue that adventure than to take its notion to the grave.

It is risky to go after your deepest callings, but the unlived life is deadly.

(Originally published on Publishous)