Existing is living without purpose. Living is existing with purpose. –

To be alive is to breathe. It is to take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. It is to take in clean air and breathe out toxic air.

It is pretty much the easiest thing you do. It is so easy that you have become pretty complacent in just doing that for the rest of your life, just breathing in and out. Staring at computer screens, breathing in and out.

Getting that degree your parents want, breathing in and out. Getting a job, breathing in and out. Walking home from work, breathing in and out. It is no accomplishment to be alive.

It is no big thing to breathe, walk, run, feed yourself and sustain the necessary life support it takes to keep your body healthy and working. It is really nothing that great to keep yourself alive, we all do it.

Living is something completely different. Living is taking someone’s breath away, losing your breath at moments and forgetting to breathe.

It is almost the opposite of being alive, because living will always be closer to death. Living is refusing to let the rhythms of life drown you into submission. Living is never missing a moment.

It is screaming in agony, gasping for breath. It is laughing until you can not catch your breath. It is crying until you would rather just never breathe again.

It is the feeling that everything could end in a moment and you would be ready for it. It is about forgetting to breathe, delving into passions and opportunities, swimming against the current and almost drowning.

It is loving your children so much it hurts, sacrificing your happiness for others and losing yourself in a guitar solo. It is painting until you forget your sorrows, having meaningless sex to forget the broken heart.

It is burning out and falling down. It is failing and fighting back.

It is running until you are out of breath. It is being wild and untamed. It is never stopping, always looking and never be complacent.