Get up at 6:30am, make coffee, eat breakfast, go to school, get home at 4pm, do homework, eat dinner, watch Netflix or play video games, go to bed, and repeat. So many of us do this five days a week. Once we graduate, substitute work for school. We face these grueling five days longing for the weekend, then we wake up and it’s Monday again. And so the cycle repeats. What a life . . . not! Does this sound pointless to anyone else? What happened to enjoying life?
You’ve Been Tamed
I’m sorry, but if that last paragraph describes you, then you have officially been tamed. Your life is so mundane and boring that you try to scrape some sort of excitement out of it by escaping your life all-together and living through the lives of your avatars or favorite TV shows. Wouldn’t it be nice if your life could be filled with excitement? What if your video game seemed boring compared to your real life? How cool would that be?
Your first thought to that question was probably similar to what I thought: “yeah, right, my life could never be that exciting.” And this is the first sign that you have indeed been tamed. But it’s not too late.
Misconceptions of Living Wild
Living wild doesn’t mean you will be popular or even famous. It doesn’t mean you act tough or cool. Being truly wild may actually require you to do the uncool thing. Wild living is about disregarding what all your friends say is cool and doing what is truly right.
Video games are fun because they are easy. You can build a house in ten minutes, fight a dragon without ever risking a scratch, or street race without endangering your own car. If you want to live wild, then you better be ready for hardship. In fact, hardship is what makes a life wild. Go ahead and think of one person you admire (fictional or nonfictional). Would you still admire them if their journey was easy? Of course not.
“But I don’t want my life to be difficult, I want it to be easy. I don’t want to get hurt.” If this reflects your thoughts, then congratulations, you just proved again that you are tame. Don’t worry, I have that thought too. The thing is, you can’t let that thought stop you.
Get hurt! Get dirty! Just get your friends together and do something. Climb a mountain, dam up a creek, learn a new trick, build a rope swing, eat a bug.
The Real Key to Live Wild
Yes, real men do hard things, but real men don’t just do hard things so they can feel good about themselves and call themselves a man. Real men do hard things to help others. Think back through all your heroes and role-models. You will see two trends of what makes these heroes powerful. Either they faced incredible odds and survived, or they intentionally faced incredible odds for the sake of others.
Real men love hard. Real men are willing to step in harms way because they care more about some goal or someone else than they do themselves. Face that difficulty because you don’t care how much it strains or hurts you. Do it because you care about someone else. Now, that’s wild living. Sure you aren’t slaying a hundred zombies to save the hot chick, but you are changing lives. Maybe it’s a change so slow it’s hard to see any progress. Maybe no one acknowledges your hard work. That’s okay.
Remember, real men don’t do manly things so they can be seen as heroes. They do big things because they know it’s right and because they care more about something else than they do themselves. There’s a lot of room to grow in this, and that growth will never end. But there is hope. Take it one day at a time.
How are you living the wild life?
If you are trying to find out how you can help others, check out my blog Recognize the War
If you’d like to learn more about how to life wild, check out john Eldredge’s book Wild at Heart
YES! 2019 = Unleashed! Thank you, Jesus for freedom (Gal. 5:1).
Amen! Free from shame, fear, and letting other’s opinions define or control us.