Are You Fully Alive?

Are you fully alive?

A helpful acronym:

ALIVE – Always Learning Inspired Vitally Engaged

Alive: "a person, animal or plant - living, not dead, alert, active and animated, interested in, responsive to."

Definitions are always helpful but they may not fully help us to comprehend the total picture of what, for instance, it means to be alive. This is why I tend to combine a definition into an acronym to help develop a more complete picture with words.

Always. Being alive is not intermittent but a continuum, daily and moment by moment. Even when we are asleep all of our bodily, mental and spiritual activities continue in a rejuvenation process. We may look like we are "dead to the world" but, in the special process of sleep, we are not dead but very alert, active and animated, interested and responsive to a valuable process of life called sleep.
Learning. Whether awake or sleep we continue to acquire knowledge and skills, experiencing unique ways of being taught. Without learning you would not continue to grow and develop into the person we are meant to be. A primary part of living is growing in knowledge and understanding. Like breathing we need to inhale the air before we can let it out in order to share the interdependence of being fully human.
Inspired. Inspiration fills one with the urge and ability to become creative. Creativity inspires our imagination enabling us to be productive and even artistic. It is that part of our human trinity that we call soul; that part of us that comes from the depth of who we are as conscious beings.
Vitality. Is the state of being strong and active, filled with the energy that gives continuance to life itself. Without this aspect we would lack the power necessary to maintain the energy for being consistently alive.
Engaged. Without engagement; being involved, attentive with plans for moving forward, life would dwindle and stop. To be engaged is to be alive without slowing down or giving up.

Being alive is like a good sentence; it must have a noun and a verb along with all the modifiers that amplify and express the full statement of our being a person. In fact, each day may be likened to the many sentences needed within each year over all our years that comprise the totality of our lives. As the 12 Step Program of AA says, "one day at a time." When each day is lived honestly as an "open book," we provide the best opportunity for self development and advancement for living well.

Gerard A. Pisani, Jr.