The Grasshopper offered this post 4th of July firecracker this morning: “If you want to live more, respond more.”

Are you getting caught up in your life story? That’s what most of us do and that’s not living; that’s existing.

The difference between existence and living is the same difference that’s between reacting and responding.

A reaction is just that – a re-action. We’ve offered it so many times before that we already know the stale state of affairs it delivers. There’s nothing new in a reaction. It takes on a predictable life of its own. That’s existing.

Responding delivers something new and that’s living.

Responding to life is a way of life that’s worth cultivating. It delivers a fresh crop of living each time we remember to dig deeper than a reaction.

Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl said it this way: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

Want to remain in a miserable existence? It’s easy, keep offering the same reaction to a given stimulus.

But if you’re looking for more living, there’s nothing more lively than a response.

You have the ability to choose how to respond; you just have to recognize that you own that ability, and then take the next step and use it.

The space that Frankl refers to comes about when you pause and let your reaction just pass by. Right behind it are a bevy of, heretofore, unseen choices that haven’t been considered. Choose one of them and offer it up and feel life come back into your daily existence.

Living more life is choosing a response; reacting robs you of that opportunity.

All the best,

John