Is This You? Survive and Thrive

I found out the meaning of life today. No, really. Here it is. Life is the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter. Well, that’s what my good friend Google came up with. Taking a closer look, I see that Google sees us, we upright and opposable thumb beings, as animals. I agree. You would, too, if you ever saw me tear into a rib steak. The balance of living stuff is plants. The rest of everything everywhere is inorganic matter. I have seen some of the aforementioned beings that would pass as plants. Even some could be considered inorganic material. Like on a few weekends, during football season when I veg out, I could easily be mistaken for a plant. 

There are some plants that are, to me, so scary they could be animals. Have you ever seen a Venus Fly Trap consume a fly? A plant eating an animal creating in the end, inorganic matter. Well, there’s the true circle of life. My work here is done. Except for…

It is our responsibility to survive our lives. We somewhat take care of our bodies. Some more than others. We eat right, again, some more than others. We don’t run with scissors or stick forks in outlets. We don’t stop and try to get close-up pictures with buffalo in Yellowstone National Park. Well, again, you can’t fix stupid. But. Yes, a day-to-day surviving “but.” Perhaps more than just surviving, we could take a look at thriving too. Just what could be the difference between surviving and thriving? I mean in trying to thrive our own survival, hey, what could happen? Haha.

While mindlessly flipping through the 125 channels of “nothing is on” television at 3:47 a.m., my eye caught a guy skiing down the side of a mountain. Yes, what I call falling off a mountain on a teeny tiny pair of sticks. It was so pretty. The clean snow. The miles and miles of natural beauty. Then. As he was thriving, he found himself trying to survive the avalanche he and his sticks caused. Yes, while thriving life, that survival thingy could happen. That is really a bit too extreme thriving, even for me, and I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane when I was 65.

Would I do that again? Well, yes, yes, I would actually. But would the guy who tried to out ski an avalanche do that again? I would hope not. That’s where, when trying to push our surviving needle up and over our thriving needle, experience and probably some age come into play. I’ll try a lot of things. Even though experience and age have graciously taught me to know my limitations. Oh, learning our limitations takes years and years of trying to out ski avalanches.

The first time I felt the “No Trina, you really should not try that!” tug at myself I was riding a motorcycle. In the mountains, on a road made by a D-9 CAT with tracks that left the road looking somewhat like the surface of a creek bed after a dredge had dredged it up. Twice. Did it stop me? Nope. I put her in gear and took off down the trail, and had a blast. When I got to the bottom, it took my other half about five minutes to get to where I was. Even he said he couldn’t believe I rode down that trail. It’s true, you know. No brain, no pain. But that day, I realized I was in charge of my survival. 

I need to thrive to live life to it’s fullest. But in that overwhelming desire to thrive, when we put our survival on the shelf and just hope for the best, we are not being responsible opposable thumb animals. 

So, the next time, I was put in the position to choose my own path. Survive or thrive? I chose to survive. We, again were in the mountains. I was on my motorcycle and others were on 4-wheelers. Up. Up. Up we climbed. Then that last bit looked really, really up there. I mean the spring time road was rutted and looked squishy. Just right for 4-wheelers. Not so much saying, “come hither Trina.” 

So, I waited at the bottom while the others clawed and skidded to the top. 

They touted how amazing the view was and what they had seen when they got back. I was a bit disappointed I didn’t go, but at the same time, I found the world got bigger for me, not smaller. I didn’t go. I didn’t push my needle past my comfort zone, and the world got bigger. It took me being grown up enough and learning my limitations to really begin to thrive my own survival. 

Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers. Email her at [email protected].

Really!