"It's hard to get people to sign up for life". 

Have you ever accidentally overheard a portion of someone's conversation, and gone on to think about it? This happened to me a few days ago when I was helping out at a local Unitarian Church cleaning up and setting up between the regular Unitarian service and a Hindu service that was to follow. 

I was picking up hymnals from the chairs and thinking that if I was done in time, I might stay for the Hindu service, when I wandered past a group that was meeting on the choir risers.

 "It's hard to get people to sign up for life", said a member of the group as I passed.

 "Yes", I thought, as I continued my work. "It is hard to get people to sign up for life." I thought of people I knew who stayed in jobs they didn't like, and with friends they didn't like. What is it that keeps us doing the mundane? Is it simply fear of change? 

We are, every minute, making a choice either to do what we have already done, or to do something new. And so often we choose to exist, instead of to live. 

As I gathered more of the blue binded books, I thought of my own life, and how long I stayed with a job I hated before deciding to leave. Why had it taken me so long to sign up for life? And even now, away from that job, I spent most of the time thinking about how happy I will be one day when I have the career I want. Why am I waiting until then to be happy, when I can simply be happy now? 

I turned another corner, and I thought about my weight. I had put on a lot of weight recently, and I had resolved to lose it. When I lose the weight, I figured, I would get wonderful new clothes, and I would dress well. And I would go out, and meet people. But why am I waiting? I can be social, and dress as I like right now.

 It seems we are all waiting for life to happen to us, some time down the line. "When I get that promotion", "When I get married", "When I have my degree".. So we wait to be happy until some future date. And so often the dream is so important that we are afraid to even take steps in that direction. 

Is it living itself that we fear? Or do we simply feel we are not worthy of life until we have earned it? If there were a simple sign up sheet, who would put their name down to live?

 Somehow this woman had seen it, and summed it up in one sentence. Why is it so hard to get people to sign up for life? And with an arm full of song books, my work almost done, I turned again and I was back by the choir risers. I leaned in, in case I could get another ear full of wisdom. And the same woman was speaking.

 "Well, maybe we should just concentrate on the one year memberships instead", she said.