“We’re all just walking each other home.” – Ram Dass

The other week I visited a relative in an assisted nursing facility. Let me be blunt: it was desolate. Bleak. Beyond depressing. Standing there in that sterile hallway, a thought crept in that I couldn’t shake: “So this is what awaits us at the end of our lives” – forgotten, waiting to die. I promised myself I’d never end up there.

Except I already was.

Something shifted after that visit. I started losing interest in things, but not in the obvious way depression is often portrayed. It was subtler – like someone slowly turning down a dimmer switch on my life. The joy faded. Fatigue crept in. Motivation slipped away. I was going through the motions, playing it safe, lying to myself without ever saying a word.

My passion? Extinguished. My smile? Faded. I withdrew into myself, and the worst part was I barely noticed it happening.

Today hit hard. One of those heavy days where existence itself feels like walking through mud. I couldn’t decide what to do with myself, so I took my own medicine and just sat with it. That’s when it hit me – clear as day: “I am depressed.”

But here’s where it gets interesting. In that moment of naming it, I caught myself attaching to it, wearing depression like an identity. Then came the shift – subtle but seismic: I’m not depressed. I feel depressed. That tiny change in words created space. Space to breathe. Space to learn.

As I sat with this feeling, truth knocked me sideways: I was just like those nursing home residents. I was waiting to die.

Let me be crystal clear – this isn’t about suicide. It’s about something more insidious: I had let go of so much that I had nothing left to live for. Sure, I had my family. Yes, I still wrote. Yeah, I could still appreciate sitting under trees. But none of that mattered in this state of being.

In my journey of letting go – of identity, of beliefs, of attachments – I went too far. I blew out the flame of desire itself. And without desire? Life becomes a waiting room.

So here’s my truth, raw and unfiltered. I desire:

• To be held and to be loved (yes, even us spiritual seekers need human touch)
• To feel the wind’s caress and the sun’s kiss on my skin
• To mean something, to leave a mark
• To be a hot-blooded, fully alive human being
• To give back, to contribute something real
• Most of all? To live wild and free – by my own rules

So I’m asking you – not as some enlightened guide, but as a fellow human finding his way back to life – what are your rules for a well-lived life?