The Things We Choose
We could be larger
Journal: 22 February, 2025, morning.
When I think of all the things we could be doing, and then I think about what we actually *are* doing, well, that just makes me want to go sit down in a chair somewhere and put my face in my hands and breathe deeply.
That deep breath, going down into my lungs, taking in the oxygen circulating through all of the capillaries, and providing all the things my body needs to keep me sitting in that chair, breathing, thinking the thoughts I am thinking…
Alive. I am alive! I am alive. Miracle of miracles, I sit here. Alive.
Oh, the possibilities of being alive! Rich, rich, rich possibilities… this beautiful, beautiful life, this beautiful, beautiful world of ours. Both so rich. Both there, waiting. Always waiting. For us to notice them.
I took out the candle that I got at the monastery on our last trip down that way, and I struck a match and lighted the wick and set it out on the sunporch windowsill. Later, walking through the door, the air was fragrant with incense, and I closed my eyes and I was back there again, sitting in the dim light, listening to the monks chanting, feeling the rituals of centuries of quiet and solemn obedience. Lives being lived.
Look at the stars. I remind myself of this daily: look at the stars. Look up from the small self imposed container of daily life. Look at the stars. Look at what is out there that we could be seeing, that we could be experiencing, that we could be living.
This is the tragedy of life: that we make it so small, often so petty, when it could be infinitely large.
Given the world, given universes, we squabble and quarrel and complain, and scrabble in the dust for crumbs, and think we are living. 
At some point, in the next few minutes, I will straighten up and take my face out of my hands, and take another few deep breaths, and then I will get up and go about my day.
Stretch. I will do my best to stretch and expand and live larger than the crumbs in the dust. I will do my best to actually use this gift of life, to not sit it on a shelf and forget it’s there. Forget I am alive. Forget the absolute joy of that realization.
Be larger. See farther. Get up out of the dust. Live. Do something worthy of being given this gift.
#journalingalife