What's This Life For

[Zarathustra]

Good luck! Exciting times, for sure. Stressful, but exciting. [I still have bad dreams about college and high school exams ... I stressed way too much about it.]

[Rau Le Creuset]

This life is for you! the past three days of my life have solely revolved around the Lord of the Rings Directors cut extended edition on a bigass TV. IM NOT A NERD I SWEAR!....okay maybe a little. I also swear that I don't cry at all the endings in Return of the King!
okay maybe a little.. BUT, in my eyes man tears are acceptable in Lord of the Rings.

Anyways, I forgot what I was going to say so..
cheers.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Hey, I love this thread idea... I love that list.

...My grandparents are gone, my parents are in their mid 60s. Mortality is metaphorically staring me in the face. Folk wisdom says we have two lives, and the second begins once we realize we only have one. (I love that paradox.) So I think I'm at that point, and have been thinking lately where I should put my energies in the home stretch as it were.

Parents getting old is pretty scary. It really does make you get more aware of mortality.

Some admittedly incomplete ideas:

• Procreation and the unconditional love that entails
• Love someone greatly
• Become a person you admire / self improvement / self actualization
• Be creative and take risks, challenge yourself
• Pleasure / wealth / comfort
• Spiritual growth
• Serve others
• Serve principles of your choosing with honesty, integrity, and courage
• To know one's self
• Know God / discover one's place in the cosmic order / achieve transcendent peace

It's no secret that I'm big on that last one (the first part) - "know (and love) God."
The One King? Jesus.

Here's some of my idea of what that means more specifically, though.
If I know and love God, then I will:
* Love people who are in my life (and some who aren't yet) greatly.
* Become a person who is like the sort of person who has virtues I now appreciate and virtues I don't now notice are important.
* Be creative and take risks, challenge myself.
* Seek pleasure & God and in the many good things he's given. Seek to use wealth wisely. Comfort and be comforted.
* Serve others.
* Serve principles of honesty, integrity, courage, and humility which are bigger than me.
* If married, wisely pour love upon my spouse in a gift-giving way.

So, I guess I think that true worship of God does not trump all those other things of great value... but should include (the good versions of) them.

Also, do you think that a lot of those things can interact? feed into each other?
i.e. you work on gaining integrity -> then you're able to empathize with others about how hard it is do their work honestly -> you become better at loving people

Zeta Prime- I hate it when that happens! (But you are hilarious.)

But right now I may be about to lose out on that passiveness a bit since I'm going back to school to try for a more practical education (1st day of class is tomorrow).

Wooooo! Props to you, man!

Edit: tried to reduce the "tl:dnr" factor.