To live life to the fullest

‘Life is difficult!” These are the opening words of M Scott Peck’s best-seller The Road Less Travelled. Scott Peck continues to say that this is a great truth.

It is indeed a great truth because once we truly see it, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

Generally, we do not consciously live with the fact that life is difficult. We are always looking for ways of how to do things easier, to escape difficulty, to avoid challenges. We live with the illusion of our times ahead as being hassle-free, without problems and generally smooth sailing. Yet that is exactly what it is—an illusion.

It’s an illusion because we are meant to live life and live it to the fullest. “I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly” (Jn 10:10). True and abundant life consists of blissful joys and painful woes. It is precisely in experiencing our woes, our difficulties and facing our challenges that we truly feel alive.

Years ago I used to enjoy watching the Dusi Canoe Marathon, an annual three-day canoe race along the Msunduzi river from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. Some parts of the race are on a 10km stretch of flat water on the Inanda dam, but for the most part of the race the river water is anything but flat.

I used to wonder what if the entire race just took place on one long stretch of smooth, calm, flat water? Wouldn’t it be easier to see all the contenders? Wouldn’t it be easier to judge who is fastest? Wouldn’t it be safer? Why have the contenders struggling and negotiating dangerous rapids followed by sharp dips and rocky patches? This part of the race was more of a frustration for me to watch because the paddlers would inevitably bump into the rocks or even have their canoes capsizing.

Yet, the paddling and negotiation of intimidating-looking rapids and the recovering and re-positioning of their capsized canoes is what pumps the adrenaline in the paddlers and provides the energy to move forward. The paddlers put in everything to survive all the rapids, dips and rocks—no one escapes this part. Once this part is successfully negotiated, it is smooth sailing to the finishing line.

The rapids, dips and rocks of our lives are the difficulties and challenges we face physically, emotionally and spiritually. We feel the adrenaline pumping when we are ready to face these challenges. We feel alive. The adrenaline we feel is our true spirit deep within ourselves—God’s spirit.

Once we have overcome these challenges successfully we become a changed person, a different person. We cannot be the same person once we have felt that spirit moving in us and being with us through our difficulty. We have grown.

A person who has gone through a successful heart transplant feels physically healthy again. A person who has experienced the heartbreak of a failed relationship becomes stronger and wiser emotionally. And we appreciate it so much more once we can feel deep inside us again that God knows us and loves us—our spirit is rejuvenated.

It is not asked of us to look for difficulties in our lives in order to feel fully alive. We are asked to face our difficulties and overcome our difficulties with the help of God in order for us to “have life, and have to the fullest”.