You’re alive right now.
Up to this point today you probably haven’t given that fact much thought.
It’s likely in all you have going on, that you haven’t stop to consider that your heart is beating, your synapses are firing, that your breath is expanding and contracting your lungs.
That’s fairly big news.
You are here.
It wasn’t a guarantee that you would be.
Lots of people who were here yesterday, aren’t here today—but you are.
That spectacular story that should be the bold-type headline, has probably been crowded out by the length of your to-do list,
by unexpected middle school child emergencies,
by unscheduled water leaks,
by trending disasters on your timeline,
by fender benders in the office parking lot,
by tiny mid-life crises upon seeing yourself in an inverted iPhone camera without warning.
It’s quite likely that you’re already so preoccupied and overwhelmed by the tasks and appointments and worries and obligations in front of you—that you’ve forgotten that you’re alive.
I want you stop for a second and remember.
I want you to press your thumb into your wrist until you feel the blood pulsing beneath it.
I want you to stop and notice the rise and fall of your chest.
I want you to feel the fact that you’re alive.
And then I want you to remind yourself why you live—not why you’ve survived to be present for another day, as this is a bit beyond your capacity I’m afraid.
But since you are here, why do you live?
Who or what is worth spending this day on behalf of?
This morning, I looked across the living room and caught a glimpse of my nine-year old daughter. She was twirling and singing and bounding onto the couch and across the floor—reveling in the joy of simply being. I saw the explosive hope that she carries around inside her and that she often cannot contain.
I reminded myself that she is why I live. She is why I work and speak and push back and persist and worry and fight and resist: to make a world that she deserves.
And not just for her, but for every child who lives and breathes and dances; for those who in this moment are hungry and scared and sick: for those who are not yet here and will inherit the planet that we make in this day.
I shared a photo of my daughter with my Twitter community, and asked them why they engage in their activism. Their responses were moving and powerful and life-affirming—and they gave me even more reasons to keep going, more faces and names worth living for.
I don’t know your why—I just know that you have one; a burden you carry, a cause that grips you, an idea that you cannot shake, a hill worth dying on, a face across from you in the living room.
A million seemingly important events and distractions threaten to crowd out your why today; to make you forget the reason you get up every day and brave the wounds and the worries that come with it, the people who give your life meaning and direction, the endeavors worthy of the blood pumping through your veins and the breath inside your chest.
Refuse to let them.
Today, realize that you’re alive—and then remember why you live.
Get John’s book, ‘Hope and Other Superpowers’ HERE!
