It seems silly to say, because it is so obvious, but you only have one life to live. Life is short, unpredictable, and for far too many people often unhappy and unfulfilling.

Love what you do. Do what you love. You only have one life to live and there is no time to wait and no time to waste.

Your life is the result of all the beautiful and amazing things you could have done minus all the beutiful and amazing things you did not do! – AlexK

Onism – the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you will never get to see before you die – and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.

You are here. You were lost at first, but soon began sketching yourself a map of the World – plotting the contours of your life.

And like the first explorers, sooner or later you have to contend with the blank spaces on the map. All the experiences you’ve never had. The part of you still aching to know what’s out there. Eventually these questions take on a weight of their own, and begin looming over your every day life.

All the billions of doors you had to close in order to take a single step forward. All the things you haven’t done and may never get around to doing; all the risks that may or may not have been real; all the destinations you didn’t buy a ticket to; all the lights you see in the distance that you can only wonder about; all the alternate histories you narrowly avoided; all the fantasies that stay dormant inside your head; everything you’re giving up, to be where you are right now; the questions that you wrongly assumed were unanswerable.

It’s strange how little of the universe we actually get to see. Strange how many assumptions we have to make just to get by, stuck in only one body, in only one place at a time. Strange how many excuses we’ve invented to explain why so much of life belongs in the background. Strange that any of us could ever feel at home on such an alien World.

We sketch monsters on the map because we find their presence comforting. They guard the edges of the abyss, and force us to look away; so we can live comfortably in the known World, at least for a little while.

But if someone were to ask you on your deathbed what it was like to live here on Earth, perhaps the only honest answer would be, ‘Idon’t know. I passed through it once, but I’ve never really been there.’