From Bystander to Captain: Navigating Alive Time in Your Life

In the grind of daily existence, Robert Greene slaps us with a truth bomb: life's ticking by in one of two gears—Dead Time, where we're just bystanders in our own stories, or Alive Time, where we seize the script and write our own epic. It's a stark choice, echoing David Foster Wallace's "This Is Water," reminding us that the mundane sea we swim in is brimming with the choice of awareness, of being fully submerged in the now, not just floating adrift.

Dead Time is that limbo where you're the audience to your life, passively watching the days blur into a monotonous slideshow. It's easy to fall into, especially when we're handed setbacks or find ourselves in situations we didn't punch our tickets for.

Alive Time, though? That's the gold—when you're in the driver's seat, steering through the chaos, learning, growing, and wringing every drop of experience out of the seconds ticking by. It's Howard Thurman's call to arms, a rally to chase what sets your soul on fire, not because the world demands it, but because it's what makes you feel alive. What the world needs, desperately, are souls ablaze with purpose and passion.

This isn't about your environment or the hand you've been dealt. It's about the choice you make to either wilt or thrive, to either let the current drag you or to swim with vigor against the tide.

Are you marking time or making time? How will you pivot from being a passive observer to an active participant in your life's unfolding story?