Finding The Replacement Ingredient

What happens to life when everything around you deteriorates as you keep trying to live? Have you come that far in life that it's happened? Have you really lived long enough for the world to seem to crumble around you? When it felt that way, what was your solution?

The questions are variations of questions many people are faced with. And it's not just because they have some gray hairs, laugh lines, and crow's feet. It's not because they were inept, a fuck-up, or made a mistake. It's because that's the story of living in the real world. Real living means living a life where everything that you know, and all that you hold dear, can vanish with the snap of a finger.

Living is not existing. Living means you're doing something. And that's not always something that fits inside a box of preconceived notions about how to live a life. Of course, when we're young, there are adults who tell us how to manage a life in this world. But their simplified, from-the-box, outdated thinking is not a complete explanation of the world and its inner workings.

They didn't tell you the truth is an overly simple way of trying to wake people up to reality. None of the adults who gave advice or guidance were being deceptive. What they did do, and knowingly so, was to push or guide you in a direction that made sense without ever acknowledging the truths of that journey. And much like any journey, there are bumps in the road. Some of those bumps will feel like you drove 100 mph into the side of a mountain.

One of those bumps in the road is an inevitable one. Whether you're facing it at a relatively young age or as a senior citizen, it's going to happen to most people eventually. It's the point in your journey when things start to fade away. It's like they're being blipped, like at the end of Avengers: Endgame, when Tony snaps his gloved fingers and Thanos's army turns to ash or dust right in front of the world.

Alas, there comes a time when something is missing. And inevitably, you'll start to look for something to fill that hole or gap in your daily life. You'll have to; otherwise, life feels more like existing rather than living. And that's the part of living that nobody sits you down and warns you about.

There is no guidebook or wise elder, because they didn't know how to describe things, didn't know, or kept it personal. Some choose to keep that part of their lives personal. They've crossed that bridge and, for better or worse, made their choices. A harsh lesson about living is that eventually, every life is missing a key ingredient.

The unfulfilled lives that we encounter in our time aren't the perfect picture of what it means to be. They are an imperfect image, filled with conflicts, despair, loneliness, and challenges. Nobody is admiring a life that appears to be missing one key ingredient of living that is universally sought after. It's the one thing that binds humanity, even in the darkness of our never-ending mistrust, animosity, fear, or hatred of one another.

And no, you can't go to the shelf, find a bottle with the ingredient inside, and take a pinch for yourself.

For all the ingredients there are, they make up the missing piece that is notable. Together, they allow a person to appear to have found the key to living well. But as you get older, you'll experience things that take away the outcome of mixing all of life's ingredients. Something will disappear.

And then, it's up to you to find the final piece again, or a replacement ingredient. Because if you don't, you shift from living a life to mere existence. And existing in a life isn't the same as living a life. All the ingredients mixed make up a full and meaningful life, and a life that someone else would want to live.

Without the completed recipe to make your days happy and worth continuing to get up for...

You eventually stop living.

What's your missing ingredient?