Flatlines

“If there are no ups and downs in your life, it means you’re dead.”

— Ben Francia*

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A few days ago, while listening to a podcast were the relationship between change and pain was being discussed, it occurred to me that if we could "connect" our life to a machine and examine its electrical signals, the resulting reading would be very similar to that of a regular electrocardiogram. In other words, something nonphysical or material, like our existence, could, metaphorically, be measured, evaluated, and even diagnosed, in the same way that our heart can.

On an electrocardiogram, high and low peaks are evidence of change, variation, existence. These signals are intimately linked to life, for in their absence, nothingness itself, death itself, rules.

So, to continue with this comparison—perhaps a bit capricious—if you were to compare the reading of your heart's vital signs with those of your life, what would the frequency of its beats be? Would they be consistent or irregular? Would there be signs of rapid palpitations and sudden trembling, or would its reading be the unequivocal reflection of a flat, horizontal line?

Of course this, like most analogies, is imperfect. A heart that stops pumping no longer "exists," its purpose defeated. With our lives, however, it sometimes seems as if we've sunk into a comatose, vegetative state. A "virtual death”, if you will.

In the absence of challenges, only safe bets remain—if I may use the oxymoron. Lacking risks, paper-made certainties abound. There is no cadence, no light, no surprise. All that remains is a weary drag, a surrounding darkness, and a bitter, freezing disappointment.

So much plastic certainty, so much fear of risking what one is for what one could become, has transformed your life into a flat routine, a perpetual horizontality.

Surely, you didn't realize it, you didn't perceive the change in rhythm, or its disappearance.

Everything always comes down to an instant. And instants often go unnoticed.

Thus, overwhelmed by the demands of daily survival, you forgot that tomorrow will still arrive and that your today is nothing more than the outcome of a yesterday in which you simply bet on not losing.

By the way, I’ve been there. More times than I'd like to accept.

And in exchange for what?

Where are the results of hollow certainty? Where is the gain from a lack of ambition?

What happened to the nervous shake in the face of challenge, the frenzy leap into the void, exchanging the certainty of a safe landing for the intoxicating sensation of being able to fly?

What morning, enslaved by routine, did you become numb to your feelings? What internal discourse has limited your eagerness to live?

We have been sold the lie that what is polished, smooth, and flat is attractive and perfect, as if it were not the uneven roughness that stimulates our sense of touch, as if steep climbs did not imbue our retinas with the discovery of an unknown landscape, of unnoticed, superior perspective.

We buy certainty, then become filled with doubt.

We acquire comfort, then we lose rest.

We allow ourselves to be deluded by destinations, while we forgot about the journey.

The outside noise tells us what we want to hear, and the dread from within keeps us from what we need.

Flatlines. Dead dreams.

How much longer? What else do you need to change?

They say change only happens when the pain of continuing the same is greater than the pain of changing.

What are you waiting for, then? Is this pain, your pain, more tolerable than trying to reach for what you long?

Once again: I was there.

Renounce. Rebel. Break free from the statism. Fill up your lungs with oxygen, run, jump, shout... but breach through that monotony.

It's not tomorrow. It's today.

There are times to walk while trembling, to escape the paralysis of fear. There are things we need to shout until our voices are hoarse. There are places and people we can only leave behind while crying. And there are tears well worth shedding.

If you long for the sun, go through the night. The shortest path—though not the easiest—is usually through. Shortcuts are sweetened deceptions, and dead-ends alleys.

At the end of the day, the worst way to be dead is to not want to live.

The time that has passed will not return, and your actions of yesterday cannot be erased. So, leave them there, in the past, and begin anew today. Stop measuring yourself by your mistakes, your apathy, or your inactions from years past. This "you" of this day is the result of everything you did and didn't do. Of your successes and your failures. Of every shortcoming and what you could have done better.

This is you. Today. Because of all that.

Despite all that.

Interestingly, the perfect heart rate has high peaks, but also low drops.

Accept your today’s self, and start raising your pulse. Life awaits, throbbing on that flat line, hungry for heartbeats.

Lose your breath, and you will breathe again.

* Ben Francia is a Digital Marketing Consultant for Small to Medium Enterprises, Startups, Local Businesses and Marketing Agencies. He is also a Permaculture Designer, Ecological Entrepreneur, Digital Marketer, Life and Business Coach, and Ironman.