Dominate Existence

I'm not a crazy fitness freak, but two or three times a week I love going down the street to a little half-court and pretending I'm an NBA player for half an hour before I start my day. Really, I probably look like a goose playing one-on-one with an imaginary opponent.

The last couple of mornings when I've gone down to shoot I've been there as the sun was rising. It's been a bit of a "God moment". So this morning when I went down I made sure I grabbed my phone and took a picture. As I was posting the picture on facebook and instagram, I was wondering what caption I should put with it. "Love your life" is a slogan on some of our promo material that I've come to appreciate. But what does that mean - what is it about life that people aren't loving? That's when it hit me: "Dominate Existence!"

See, there's a difference between living and existing. For me, existing is the bare minimum, it's the least we can achieve in this life: breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping and (I suppose in this age you have to add it to the list) working. In this history of humanity this is what everyone has done. Everyone that has inhabited this earth has at least existed. But we don't remember everyone.

The people that we remember are people that have lived. They are people who did more than the bare minimum. They are people that impact our lives, that make us want more than monotony and unimaginative routine. And you want to know the cool thing? We can be those people too!

I was speaking to a young guy last night up the coast. He'd organised his whole class to do a dance together at their school talent show. Well, today's the talent show and everyone has pulled out on him. He's going to do it anyway, whether people join him or not. And this is what I mean by dominating existence. We don't need to just exist, we can do so much better. So, dominate existence - go the extra mile in life, do that thing you've always wanted to do, or challenge yourself to do the thing you were always too afraid to do.

A mate that I play basketball with was telling me that when he talks to people they mostly talk about work. How often when people ask "how you going?" do we respond with "tired" or "stressed" or "work/uni/life is hectic" or even just the plain old, monotonic "good" ??? Our answer could be so much more vibrant. Here's the thing: everything we dislike about our life will stay exactly the way it is unless we do something about it!

So, is the glass half empty or half full? It's the age old question, isn't it? Well, if you ask me, it's a glass that I can pick up, take to the tap and fill to overflowing! God has so much more to offer us if we get up off our butts and truly live: "I came that they may have life and have it to the full" (Jn 10:10).