Most people don’t notice when they stop living.
That’s the tricky part. There’s no alarm that goes off. No one pulls you aside and says, “Hey, you’re just existing now.” You still go to work. You still reply to emails. You still laugh at the occasional meme and say “I’m good” when someone asks how you are. But something’s off. The days don’t feel different from each other. You’re moving, but not moved. Present, but not really there.
That’s what it means to exist.
To live, on the other hand, is to engage. Not perform, not optimize – just engage. It’s to show up with intention. To feel joy without guilt. To be excited about things that don’t come with a price tag or productivity metric. Living is often subtle. It’s not the bucket list thrill rides or the Instagram-worthy vacations. It’s sitting with someone who makes you feel seen. It’s building something, anything, that didn’t exist before you touched it.
The difference between living and existing isn’t always obvious until you say it out loud. But it’s the same difference between being alive and being awake.
We confuse the two all the time. Especially in cultures that reward output over experience. We’re told to hustle, to scale, to monetize. There’s a whole performance economy built around turning your personality into content and your hobbies into side hustles. Even rest has become performative – we track our sleep, optimize our mindfulness, and turn self-care into something with KPIs. And slowly, without noticing, we drift. We meet expectations. We tick off achievements. But we stop feeling.
And when we stop feeling, we stop living.
The danger in merely existing isn’t that it’s miserable. It’s that it’s manageable. It’s the slow numbing. The complacent middle. That’s why people stay in jobs that drain them or relationships that diminish them. Because they don’t feel pain. They just don’t feel much at all. And that muted life feels safer than risking the chaos of change.
But aliveness asks more of us. It asks us to choose, not just comply. To respond, not just react. To be present, not just persistent. It’s about trading certainty for curiosity, comfort for creativity, and routine for meaning.
You don’t need a sabbatical or a spiritual awakening to start living. Sometimes it starts with small rebellions: Saying “no” to things that don’t matter. Saying “yes” to things that do. Reaching out to someone first. Taking a different route home. Letting a moment linger. Feeling awe, even if you don’t have the words for it.
One of the frameworks that’s helped me clarify this difference comes from Viktor Frankl’s notion of meaning. He argued that humans are not primarily driven by pleasure or power, but by purpose. We find ourselves most alive when we are anchored to meaning – not imposed meaning, but discovered meaning. When we connect our actions to something that matters to us, however small, we move from drifting to choosing.
The same idea echoes in leadership, in entrepreneurship, in teaching. You can lead a team, but are you inspiring them? You can build a product, but are you solving a real problem? You can teach a class, but are you igniting curiosity? In every domain, the question remains: Are we going through the motions, or are we showing up with intent?
Living doesn’t mean every day is exciting. It means we don’t lose ourselves to the numb autopilot of existence. It means we give ourselves permission to care. About people. About ideas. About beauty. About something.
We forget that life is not something we manage. It’s something we feel. And when we feel it – fully, freely – we remember what it means to be alive. Not just existing, but living. Not just breathing, but becoming. Not just surviving, but thriving in the moments that don’t announce themselves as important – but are.
So no, you don’t need to reinvent your life to begin again. You just need to remember that being alive isn’t the same as being awake. The question is: When was the last time you really felt it?
Because that’s where the difference lives. Not in the noise, but in the noticing. Not in the schedule, but in the spark. Not in the chase, but in the choice.
Choose to live. The rest is just existing.