‘Your Unlived Lives’ refers to the set of choices you didn’t make—and the selves you didn’t become. Call it the unrealized self if you wish; the paths foreclosed by earlier commitments, the sense of what you could have been but didn’t pursue.
Much of this is simply reality and the need to accept it: every yes is a thousand no’s… neither a horse nor a life can follow every road. To live one life fully is to abandon many others.
At the same time there is a strong need for self-awareness. The risk is not that an unlived life exists—that’s unavoidable. The peril is if we have chosen (or drifted into) a life that denies our essence, that we have made small, almost invisible daily choices to play it safe, suppress emotions, or avoid discomfort that have kept us from living our best lives. (I strongly urge Life Planning: written goals with timelines/action plans for all 6 major life roles).
It is vital to avoid romanticizing alternatives, the classic grass is greener syndrome, overvaluing paths you never tested. Every life path has its challenges, trials and tribulations, nothing is as effortless as it seems on the exterior. As the saying goes: “Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; After Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”
The good news is it is never too late to begin anew, to take that acting class, to join that writer’s group i.e. even if you cannot fully inhabit a life path, you can enjoy testable slices. You can’t live an entire alternative life, but you can sample one.
It can also serve as a path to greater self-knowledge: “What does that pull tell me about what I value?” Another approach is to double down on your current life: your doubts and second thoughts may have led you to under-invest in present circumstances: hedging instead of committing so you are falling short of your full potential. The danger isn’t so much the unlived life, it’s the half-lived one.
Closing Quotes:
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” – Carl Jung
“There is probably no one who does not have a secret life.” – Robert Musil
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anaïs Nin
“Living our unlived life is the most important task in our mature years… What is unlived life? It includes all those essential aspects of you that have not been adequately integrated into your experience.” – Robert A. Johnson & Jerry M. Ruhl, ‘Living Your Unlived Life’
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832
