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You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
-Mahatma Gandhi

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
-St. Francis of Assisi

From what I’ve seen, these quotes explain perfectly the difference between living and existing.

Life is not made up of events, per se. It’s made up of how we process them and how we react to them. The events alone don’t make a person who they are. If you lost the memory of what you’d been through in your life, the particular pieces wouldn’t matter anymore - rather, what you’d gained (or lost) from them would be the thing to define you.

This is an edit of something I wrote a few days ago about my goal to live rather than exist:

“I think part of this, a big part, is being a good person, a kind person; choosing one’s words to impart the most help and happiness possible; choosing one’s actions to create the best possible outcome every minute of the day instead of falling into a pessimistic funk.

It’s having empathy for others while still being able to keep yourself whole rather than shattered for caring so deeply.

It’s caring deeply in the first place.

It’s seeing a problem in the world and doing all you can to fix it yourself, then inspiring others to help you (because they are amazing somebodies with voices) instead of yelling at them to stop being lazy nobodies.

It’s when you see everything as miraculous rather than nothing as miraculous; everything as original, new, beautiful, rather than everything “already having been done”, old, ugly, useless.

It’s when you can get up in the morning and be grateful for more chances to do - whatever that may involve.

It’s loving freely and easily while still understanding that people are just human, and they will disappoint you sometimes - but it’s worth it for all the joy friendship, family, and relationships bring - the joy that can come from the mingling of lives.

It’s when every second is worth it for no other reason than the fact that it is yours.

It’s when you are able to see your mistakes without hating yourself for them; It’s when you’re able to see your beauty and talent and want everyone else to feel that good about themselves, too.

It’s when you are your own strongest advocate.

It’s when you are able to share whatever you are best at – your passion – your essence – with others freely - whether that may be photography, writing, astronomy, or anything else.

It’s when you live and breathe a constant striving for, not better per se, but for goodness and whatever goodness is to you.

It really has nothing to do with the experiences you’ve collected, but more to do with the experiences you seek and why you seek them. Experiencing is not living. Not even close. I have been through more than many older than me… and yet most of my life has been permeated by this awful feeling of stagnation and nothing and third person viewing of everything that should be mine to cherish.

Living… now that is something else entirely, and something you can do on a day when all your day consists of (according to one who thinks living is a collection of snapshots and should be judged by how “interesting” those snapshots are) is a trip to the grocery store. Getting off the computer, stopping watching TV… only abandoning these habits will not promise you life. It promises you more snapshots. It is the person him or herself who makes these beautiful…

... I have no intention to be a saint. But I want to be a good person, and I want people to remember me as that. I want to touch a lot of lives, if only in the smallest of ways, because that, I think, is the greatest gift and the greatest form of creation… creation in the sense of having added a little piece of happiness. A little piece of hope... and the ability to act on it.

Maybe adding a little bit of innocence to the world - the great gift of staying childlike in awe even after spending time here. I know I’m trying.”

With all these things in mind, I am happier than I can ever remember being on a regular basis.