Be astonished that you’re here

Life is full of tiny irritations.

And if we’re not careful…

They can become our personality.

You’ve met that person.

The one whose only conversation is a complaint.

But every now and then, something interrupts the routine.

A funeral.

A hospital visit.

A near death experience.

Suddenly, the things that seemed so important a few hours earlier become almost laughable.

Because in those moments, you remember something that should never have been forgotten.

You are alive.

Yet we somehow manage to forget this for most of our lives.

Our routines become subconscious—like driving a car.

When you drive, you forget you’re driving because your brain automates the movements of your hands and feet.

Just like it automates the repetitive routines of our lives.

Against impossible odds.

On a small planet, spinning through an unimaginably vast universe.

You can see. Hear. Laugh. Love.

Feel the summer breeze.

Stand beneath a sky full of stars and wonder why any of this exists at all.

Yet most days we rush past it as though being alive were the most uninteresting thing in the world.

It’s the paradox of a normal life.

It feels like we have forever, so you waste your days.

And then snap, your time is up.

Which brings us to today’s lesson.

Try to spend less of your life asking, “what’s wrong today?”

And more of it asking, “how am I lucky enough to be here at all?”

The difficult days will still come.

You will still face sadness and injustice.

That is part of the price of loving this life. It’s part of the price of caring.

But what’ the alternative?

To complain each day until you die?

Do not let the hardships make you blind to the miracle that surrounds them.

One day, this astonishing privilege of being alive will come to an end.

Before it does…

Notice the breeze.

Notice the sky.

Notice the ordinary day you almost rushed through.

Be astonished.

Not occasionally.

Every single day you wake up.