What does living mean? What does being alive mean?

Most importantly: HOW ARE YOU LIVING YOUR LIFE?
We are all alive, but are we actually living?
It is very common to go through life as an automatic pilot. We wake up in the morning, go through our daily routine: work-food-socializing-sleep. Each day can be pretty much the same.
But are we living them? It doesn’t matter what we are doing, if we are not present we are not living. We can spend a full life sleepwalking like a zombie, or we can choose to awaken now.
Each moment of our day offers an opportunity for happiness, each moment offers the opportunity of a smile. Each moment offers the opportunity of being present, of LIVING.
What are you doing in the morning while drinking your cup of coffee? Are you there or are you drinking while reading the newspaper, watching TV, or thinking ahead about your day or your week? Can you tell what the coffee really tastes like? Do you really need to remove yourself from the present moment? What would it really be like to just drink the coffee? to just enjoy the smell of it? its color? its warmth? its taste? would it be that bad?
We always tend to run ahead of ourselves, doing something while thinking of something else. But while we do that we are actually missing WHAT WE ARE ACTUALLY DOING. And we do that all the time. We are hardly enjoying anything because we are always caught SOMEWHERE ELSE in the drama of the mind.
What would it be like to wake up one day and realize that we haven`t really lived because WE WERE NOT THERE?
A few times a day try to remember to be present, to be with what you are doing. A few times a day, just pause and look around you, find something beautiful, look at it and smile.
Stop and look at the sky.
Stop and look at a flower.
Stop and smile to a stranger in the street.
Stop and enjoy your cup of coffee.
Today is your day. It is unique. How are you going to live it?