Start chasing life every day
- Kyle Snyder: Live on Purpose
- June 30, 2025
- 652
“Ironically, the pursuit of happiness can lead us into the eternal trap of chasing unhappiness.”
—Justin Kan
Have you ever heard the phrase, “life stinks and then you die.” I had to clean it up for the newspaper because the actual phrase has a word that is not the best to publish in the paper. That is a hopeless phrase to me because it makes life sound awful. To many of us, we want to just survive and get to the next life, but I believe we are meant to thrive and not to just put up with life.
I am not going to deny life is difficult, but life also is very beautiful. It’s just the beauty of life that we have the tendency to deny ourselves of. We allow fear and anxiety to reign in our hearts, killing whatever zest for life we have. We can be too much like a horse with blinders on instead of focusing on what is in front of us. We need to take the blinders off and look at the joy, peace and hope all around us.
Right now I am surrounded by woods, sitting on the deck of a house and looking out over a pond. It is hot but lovely out. How many of us would only complain about the heat instead of enjoying the beauty of nature?
We hear so many people complain around us that we get sick of it, but we sometimes complain just as much as everyone else. Gandhi once said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” The majority of us are too busy complaining to change.
We don’t have to join in on all the misery and chaos people create. We must put our foot down and rise above all the hate we see in the world. Our mothers were right; two wrongs don’t make a right. Thanks, Mom!
It sounds simple; that’s because it is! Just because it’s simple doesn’t make it easy. In fact, the reason why it is not easy is that it is simple. We love to make things harder than they need to be. The temptation is to think there has to be more to it than that, but that is a lie. You see we need a new perspective on life. We can choose to slow down and not be rushed. That is what chasing life means.
We should slow down to think. What would we do if we didn’t have so many demands on our time? Would we go back to school, change careers, start a business, start a ministry or just spend time with those we love? I only work 20 hours a week, so I can do self-care, spend time with Stacey and write. I don’t know about you, but I encourage you to chase life every day.
Kyle Snyder can be emailed at kylesnyder86@yahoo.com.