LIve and Let Live

 

Live and let live.  It is a common phrase that I'm sure all of us have said at one time or another.  The full quote from James Frey’s 2003 book, A Million Little Pieces, “Live and let live, do not judge, take life as it comes and deal with it, everything will be okay.” It feels like this quote has been around a lot longer than just 2003. May-be Live and Let Live is the natural adaptation to Live and Let Die (1973) since most of us do not have a James Bond skill set.

Definitions from Oxford Languages defines Live and Let Live:

you should tolerate the opinions and behavior of others so that they will similarly tolerate your own.

In other words, mind your own business and let everybody else mine there's.  At least that is a common belief.   However, most of us ignore the most important part of the saying/quote.  The first word.  The best part of the saying. 

Live

Somehow, we focus on the let live part and we forget that we are supposed to be the ones living.  We are the ones that need to participate in our own life.  If you are truly living your life, how is it possible to interfere in someone else's?  You have too much to do.  You have hobbies, friends, places to go, things to do.  You have a never-ending bucket list of making your life wonderful.

Living does require a change in focus.  Change is not easy and is often very uncomfortable.  Change is scary.  Transforming our thinking/perspective is too often avoided at all costs.  It is easier to focus on someone else's life. Someone else's flaws. Someone else's poor decisions, someone else. 

To truly live we must focus on ourselves.  We often don't like what we see in the mirror.  We don’t want to see us for us.  Then we would have to take responsibility for ourselves.  We would have to admit we are just as flawed as everyone else.  Our problems are ours alone to take care of. They are not someone else's responsibility.

That is truly the problem, isn't it?  We can't live our lives because we don't like ourselves so we try to control and fix everyone else in the hopes that somehow that will fix us. Maybe someone is trying to fix us to ditch their lives.  And we fight them at every step.  How dare they tell us what to do, judge, and control us into what they think is best.

We all know somewhere deep down that this doesn't work.  We try it anyway. We keep trying while resenting and rejecting the others in our lives that are doing to us what we do to them.  Relationships are forever damaged or lost.

How can we truly live? How can we truly be our true selves, our best selves?  How do we live the lives we want? How do we achieve our goals without concentrating on ourselves?  You can’t.  How do you find your true inner peace if you're too busy with everybody else to mend your pain? 

Live and let live.  Live.   Truly live your life, and the rest will come automatically.