Living A Long Bipolar Life

“Living Long” by Nicole Cheng. Image done by Canva AI.

As a person living with bipolar disorder…

My thoughts on the concept of living a long life is mainly about balance and moderation.

There are so many things that I want to do:

• Travel to England
• Rock-wall climbing
• Trying out new international foods
• Visit every museum in Berlin
• Make it to my infant niece’s Sweet Sixteen and listen to her high school valedictorian speech
• Watch my toddler nephew become an all-star basketball player for either the Lakers or the Knicks

And so much more.

I say that life is short, but we have such a long way to live for.

And — bipolar or not — we should spend most of our lives doing what we desired and live for the best. We should be conscious about our health — both physical and mental — and, of course, there are goals that we should pursue.

Everyone has their own meaning of life.

Mines is being as positive as I can in order to reach to my virtues, though, at the same time, I should be meticulous with my virtues because too many virtues can lead to vices, whereas we do not want to have too many vices. There should be a balance between virtues and vices; a balanced pleasure is just what we need and we should make the most of it.

Coming from my own personal experiences with bipolar disorder:

Remember that there will be pain at times, though it is the feeling of pain that makes us all human and we have our own ways on how we can combat that pain into pleasure. Also note that too much pleasure can lead to pain as well, so there should be a moderation in between pain and pleasure.

My point is:

In order to live a long life with bipolar disorder, one should have positive and negative feelings and outcomes in moderation. Being balanced is what makes us human and we should experience what we can to live a longer lifestyle, regardless of pain and pleasure, and vices and virtues.

With everything in moderation, I should be able to reach my goals that I want to pursue in my life. I want to live until I die with old age, so I want to do whatever I desired before my time of mortality is up.

Don’t forget:

“Life is short, but we have such a long way to live for.” -Yours Truly

-© by Nix Cheng, 2026