Are we living, or simply passing through life?

DESAFÍ-ARTE

Are we living, or simply passing through life?

Have you ever suddenly realised that a year of your life has gone by and felt that something doesn’t quite add up? You’ve worked, taken care of your responsibilities, looked after other people and dealt with a thousand everyday issues. Yet, when you find a moment to pause, a question arises: am I living the way I really want to, or am I simply doing everything expected of me?

Sometimes, nothing extraordinary needs to happen for us to realise that something has to change. It’s enough to stop and take a look. We may discover that we’ve been running on autopilot for too long, moving from one task to the next and waiting for the weekend, the holidays or that moment when we’ll finally have time to enjoy ourselves.

And while we wait, life goes on.

When living becomes a matter of ticking things off

We get up, look at our phones, get ready in a hurry, go to work, solve problems, do the shopping, take care of the family and organise the next day. Meanwhile, our minds are already on what we still have to do, what’s worrying us or what might go wrong.

We finish one task and start another. We do what’s required, respond, organise and carry on. Without realising it, we can turn life into an endless list of things to do, as though truly living begins only when we’ve finished everything else.

But what if that moment never comes?

Living on autopilot doesn’t mean we’re doing things wrong. Our brains use habits and learned responses to make many everyday tasks easier. The problem arises when we stop paying attention to how we’re living, when we repeat behaviours without asking ourselves whether they still make sense to us.

We might share a meal with the people we love while thinking about work, walk through a beautiful place while going over a conversation that upset us, or spend the day waiting for a special moment without enjoying what’s happening in between.

We’re there, but our attention is elsewhere.

When something inside us no longer feels right

Sometimes this disconnection shows up as dissatisfaction, tiredness, irritability or a feeling that’s hard to explain: on the surface, everything is the same, but we no longer feel the same.

Perhaps we’ve been demanding too much of ourselves for too long, trying to do everything or putting our own needs off until later. Perhaps we find it hard to say no, feel responsible for everyone else’s wellbeing or get frustrated when things don’t go as we expected.

Our bodies can also give us signs. A clenched jaw, tense shoulders, difficulty switching off or a constant feeling of exhaustion can accompany periods of stress. These signs don’t have a single cause, but they can prompt us to stop and pay attention to how we’re feeling.

Rather than judging ourselves for feeling this way, we can start by asking a different question: what’s going on in my life, and how am I responding to it?

We won’t always find an immediate answer. But stopping to observe is already an important change: we stop reacting purely out of habit and begin to understand ourselves.

The stories we’ve learnt to tell ourselves

Much of the way we live is shaped by what we learn as children, the messages we receive from our families, social expectations and the experiences we accumulate along the way.

Perhaps we learnt that being responsible means never making a mistake, that we have to be strong and hide our vulnerability, that saying no means letting someone down, or that our worth depends on how much we do for others.

Over time, these ideas can become beliefs we take for granted without having examined them. And we build patterns of behaviour around them, repeating them almost without realising it.

If we believe we have to please everyone, we may end up saying yes when we want to say no. If we associate rest with laziness, it may be hard to stop even when we’re exhausted. If we think a disagreement puts a relationship at risk, we may choose to stay quiet rather than express what we need.

Many of these patterns began as ways to adapt, feel accepted or cope with difficult situations. We don’t have to reject them or blame ourselves for having learnt them. But we can ask whether they still help us today or whether, on the contrary, they prevent us from living as we’d like.

What we’ve learnt can influence the way we live, but it doesn’t have to determine all our future decisions.

Breaking patterns to open up new possibilities

Questioning a belief doesn’t mean rejecting everything we were taught or changing our lives overnight. It means allowing ourselves to reconsider what we’ve always taken for granted.

Do I really have to do it this way? What would happen if I responded differently? Am I choosing this because I want to, or because I’m afraid of disappointing someone? Do I keep this habit because it gives me something, or simply because it’s always been this way?

Sometimes, breaking a pattern begins with something as small as having breakfast without looking at our phones, taking a short walk without rushing, asking for help instead of taking everything on ourselves, or respectfully expressing a need we’ve kept quiet about for a long time.

It can also mean no longer seeing every disagreement as an attack, allowing ourselves to rest without feeling guilty, or listening to someone without mentally preparing our reply.

These are small gestures, but they can open up spaces for freedom. Not because we can control everything that happens, but because we begin to discover that there are more ways to respond than we’d imagined.

And perhaps an important part of wellbeing lies there: not in making everything happen as we expect, but in learning to relate differently to what we experience.

Being present: reconnecting with life

Living mindfully doesn’t mean analysing every thought or being constantly focused on ourselves. It means being able to return to the moment we’re living, recognise what we feel and pay attention to what’s happening without constantly being swept along by haste, worries or automatic habits.

It means truly listening to the person in front of us. Enjoying a meal, a conversation that makes us laugh, a knowing look, an unexpected hug or that moment when we feel alright without needing anything extraordinary to happen.

Everything doesn’t have to be perfect for us to enjoy life. Nor do we have to deny difficulties or take responsibility for things beyond our control. Some circumstances are not of our choosing; some losses hurt, and some periods call for time, understanding and, at times, help.

But even amid uncertainty, we can explore where to direct our attention, what we need to look after and which small decisions are still in our hands.

Because being engaged with life doesn’t mean clinging to the idea that everything will stay as we want it. It means holding on to our ability to feel, learn, share and find reasons to enjoy everyday life, even when not everything is easy.

Perhaps we’ve confused living with ticking things off, enjoyment with waiting, and being alright with having everything sorted.

But life doesn’t begin when we’ve finished our responsibilities, solved all our problems or reached that ideal version of ourselves that always seems just a little further ahead.

Life is happening now, even amid our imperfect circumstances.

And perhaps the real challenge is to stop waiting for everything to be in order before we start living the life in front of us.

Your challenge for the week

Over the next few days, notice three things: what you do out of habit, what thoughts come up when something doesn’t go as you expected, and what signs your body gives you when you’re under pressure.

Don’t try to change everything. Choose one small routine and ask yourself whether you could experience it differently. Perhaps all it takes is to pause, breathe, listen, ask for help or enjoy something you’d normally do in a hurry.

Give yourself a moment of mindfulness every day. It doesn’t have to be extraordinary: simply be fully present in a conversation, savour a meal or pay attention to a kind gesture.

The aim isn’t to build a perfect life, but to take part more consciously in the life we have.

And now, one last question:

Are you choosing how you want to live, or have you been running on autopilot for so long that you’ve forgotten you can choose?

DESAFÍ-ARTE: the art of understanding yourself, questioning yourself and discovering new ways to live.