How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living

by Rob Bell

There’s a reason it’s called a cursor. We all have a blinking line. Your blinking line is whatever sits in front of you waiting to be brought into existence.

Perhaps you’re in one of those jobs, the kind that sucks the life out of your soul and you can’t see the good in it. Stop. Leave. Life is too short to help make a world you don’t want to live in.)

How we respond to what happens to us—especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted and we have no control over—is a creative act.

Suffering and loss have this extraordinary capacity to alert and awaken us to the gift that life is.

Decide now that you will not spend your precious energy speculating about someone else’s life and how it compares with yours.

The Japanese have a word for what gets you out of bed in the morning: they call it your ikigai. Your ikigai is that sense you have when you wake up that this day matters, that there are new experiences to be had, that you have work to do, a contribution to make. Sometimes this is referred to as your calling, other times your vocation, your destiny, your path. Your ikigai is your reason for being.

You explore the possibilities because you can’t steer a parked car.

Better to receive some odd looks and have a few people roll their eyes than spend your days wondering, What if I did that . . . ? Take that step. Make that leap. Try that new thing. If it helps clarify your ikigai, if it gets you up in the morning, if it’s good for you and the world, do it.

What would it look like for you to approach tomorrow with a sense of honor and privilege, believing that you have work to do in the world, that it matters, that it’s needed, that you have a path and you’re working your craft?

Nerves are God’s gift to you, reminding you that your life is not passing you by.

Somewhere along the way in becoming adults, it’s easy to lose this potent mix of exploration and determination. We settle. We decide this is as good as it gets. We comfort ourselves with, It could be worse. If your life isn’t what it could be, if you know there’s more, if you know you could fly higher, then it’s time to start building a ramp.

When you are bored, restless, longing for something more, unfulfilled, feeling like you’ve settled, haunted by the sense of being trapped in your own life, these are the deep waters of your soul speaking to you, telling you something is wrong, something is missing, something needs to change.