I was reviewing the stats on this blog site and came across a curious search phase, “Life is not do or die.” No doubt someone does not agree with the premise of this website or the idea behind the Biz of You. I’m open to disagreement. I learn much from conversations where I disagree with others. Sometimes my position is not well founded and needs revision. Other times, we simply find our disagreement is the result of misunderstanding the two perspectives coming together. I have no idea who searched for the above phrase or why and thus am unable to open up a conversation on the topic. So this will obviously be a one-sided attempt to understand the meaning behind it.
Let’s unpack the phrase. The topic is about life and what it is or is not. Coming from an individual, the statement points to a personal understanding or perception of what life is about. We each have our experience. Each person’s experience is unique. There are countless studies on how a group of people can observe something and come away with different ideas of what happened. Thus, the statement itself is highly subjective in nature. How can it not be? We all perceive what life is about differently. I suspect we may agree on this albeit not going down the rabbit holes of scientific or religious interpretations of life. It’s the context of this website to be and relate ideas about managing our lives to achieve what we set out to do. Therefore, I’m sticking with that particular slant on this topic.
And so we get to the heart of the disagreement. The search phase indicates life is not about doing or dying. The phase does not give any indication of what life is about. That’s where a real conversation can begin. If life is not do or die, then what is it about? I can only wonder. It’s useless to speculate and would likely disrespect the originator of the search phase. So let’s unpack the phase a little more. To do or not to do, that is the question. All life on this planet does something with it’s time and energy. If nothing else life simply creates more life through some form of procreation thereby preserving the selfish genes inherent in all life on this planet. Without doing anything, life will not continue and thus die off. Without breathing we die. Without eating and drinking, we die. In my own subjective sense of the world, life will die out without doing anything. To apply this concept to the context of this website, our actions are the basis by which we create the life we live. If you want something to happen or not happen it is up to you to take action to bring about the desired state. To the end of producing our desired states in life, I’m going to weave in a couple more thoughts. I recently came across a quote or two that point to the basis of the statement that life is to do or die and provide different subjective views of why the search phrase above may not hold much truth.

Our life is spent in struggles for the realization of our wishes: all our actions proceed from the wish that something should or should not come to pass. Carl G Jung

Each man is question by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. Viktor Frankl

As a last consideration the statement that life is to do or die is falsifiable by each and everyone of us. Simply do not do anything and see what happens. We can try this on the smallest or largest scales and come to the same conclusion. If we don’t breath we die. If we don’t eat and drink which is doing something, we die. If we want something in our lives but do nothing to bring it to pass then guess what? It simply will not happen. It is for these simple reasons I stand by what I say. Life is to do or die. I will even go so far to add life and success is to do or die, there is no try. We either do what it takes to live and be successful or we don’t. Like breathing, we simply do it or die, there is no try.

If you’d like to open a dialog on this or any topic on this blog, feel free to email jacob@bizofyou.com

I apologize for any typos, punctuation or grammar errors.
Feel free to comment and let me know of my errors so I may correct them and better my biz