The Cost of Life

I did not ask to be born.

Neither did you.

Before I had a name, an opinion, a dream, or a fear, my lungs were already breathing. My heart was already beating. My body was already fighting for survival.

Life had begun before I had a say in it.

That is the first mystery of existence.

We arrive without consent, yet from the moment we arrive, we become responsible.

Responsible for our bodies.

Responsible for our choices.

Responsible for our actions.

Responsible for our future.

Responsible, somehow, for a life we never requested.

For a time, others carry the burden for us.

A mother stays awake through the night.

A father works beyond exhaustion.

Grandparents, relatives, neighbors, and communities pour themselves into a child who cannot yet pour into himself.

Human beings are born dependent. We survive because someone else chooses responsibility before we are capable of carrying it ourselves.

But eventually the hand that carried us begins to let go.

And slowly, almost without noticing, the burden becomes ours.

We become responsible for what we eat.

For how we think.

For how we speak.

For who we become.

For the habits we repeat.

For the people we love.

For the people we hurt.

For the opportunities we waste.

For the opportunities we create.

Every day, life presents a bill.

Sometimes it is small.

Sometimes it is crushing.

But it always arrives.

Some people begin their journey carrying heavier burdens than others.

A child born into poverty did not choose poverty.

A child born from violence did not choose violence.

A child born with illness did not choose illness.

A child born into war did not choose war.

Yet the burden still arrives.

This is one of the hardest truths about life.

We are not responsible for where we begin.

But eventually we become responsible for what we do with where we began.

That may not always seem fair.

In fact, it often isn't.

But life has never promised fairness.

It only promises consequence.

The strange thing is that while we complain about life's burdens, most of us desperately want life itself.

We did not ask to be born.

Yet very few of us wish to die.

We seek longevity.

We seek meaning.

We seek permanence.

We seek immortality through children, businesses, books, ideas, faith, memories, achievements, and legacy.

We cling to life even while complaining about its weight.

We celebrate the blessings of life while pretending the cost does not exist.

But the blessing and the cost are the same thing.

To be alive is to be burdened.

To be alive is to care.

To be alive is to carry responsibility.

To be alive is to lose people.

To be alive is to make mistakes.

To be alive is to suffer.

To be alive is to hope.

The blessing and the burden arrive together.

There is no version of life that contains one without the other.

And eventually, every story ends.

The billionaire dies.

The farmer dies.

The king dies.

The laborer dies.

Steve Jobs died.

One day, I will die.

One day, you will die.

The final destination has never been in question.

Only the journey is.

So perhaps the measure of a life is not how long we avoid death.

Perhaps it is how faithfully we carry the responsibilities that life places in our hands while we are here.

Perhaps the question is not:

"Why was I burdened?"

Perhaps the better question is:

"Now that I am here, what will I do with the burden?"

Because the cost of life is unavoidable.

The responsibility is unavoidable.

The ending is unavoidable.

But meaning?

Meaning is still ours to create.

And maybe that is life's final gift.

Not that we were given a choice about arriving.

But that we are given a choice about how we spend the time between our first breath and our last.