Make Today Worth Living

What would it look like to build a life you truly love?

Earlier this month, the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics released a report about fatigue in America, and the numbers are pretty sobering (click here to read).

Nearly 3 in 4 U.S. adults reported feeling very tired or exhausted at least some days during the previous three months. About 1 in 6 experienced that fatigue most days or every day. And for people experiencing frequent fatigue, it was associated with greater difficulty participating in work, social activities, and everyday life.

And this isn't simply sleepiness. The report defines fatigue as physical or mental exhaustion that doesn't necessarily improve with more sleep or rest.

Now, the report doesn't tell us WHY we're so tired.

But I have a hypothesis.

I think some of us are soulfully exhausted.

We're existentially tired from the speed of life. The invasion of technology into nearly every waking moment. Growing expectations at work and at home. Political division. Global tensions. Economic pressure. The constant noise of living in a world that doesn’t seem to shut up. And then we're sold another app, supplement, program, productivity hack, or "life-changing" thing to help us keep up with it all.

But what if the goal isn't to get better at keeping up?

What if we're meant to build lives we don't constantly need to recover from?

Lives full of joy, peace, adventure, love, stillness, meaning, play, belonging, quiet even… And no, I'm not suggesting that we force a smile and pretend everything is wonderful. BLECH. That's toxic positivity and not what loving your life means to me. The hard stuff doesn't magically disappear.

I've experienced that reminder very personally after recently losing a dear friend. Grief has a remarkable way of stripping away the illusion that we have unlimited time.

We don't.

And while we can't individually control the government, technological advancement, social systems, the economy, or much of the chaos happening around us, we do have agency over how we choose to live within it.

We can decide what gets our attention. Who gets our time. .What we say yes to. What we put down. What we savor. What we celebrate. And what we're no longer willing to postpone until "someday".

My friend's death reminded me of the urgency of building a life I deeply love—not someday, but now. A life I don't constantly need to recover from. A life I will live for myself and for every person who didn't get to make it to this day. Because life is too short AND too beautiful to spend all of it merely trying to get through.

So maybe today doesn't need to be extraordinary.

Maybe we simply need to stop treating it like a waiting room for the life we're eventually going to live.

Make today worth living.

Live Your Life… TODAY!

No journaling prompt this week. No worksheet. No deep intellectual exercise.

I want you to go live your freaking life.

At some point today, interrupt your normal routine and do something that reminds you that you're ALIVE.

When you're overwhelmed, stop what you're doing and text someone you love: I'm thinking about you. I'm so grateful you're in my life.

Ask the colleague you always say "we should grab lunch sometime" to grab lunch today.

Pick up your kiddos and announce you're having a picnic.

Leave work ten minutes early and stop at the park on the way home. Sit in the sunshine. Take your shoes off. Feel the grass.

Turn up a song you love and sing embarrassingly loudly in the car.

Eat the good chocolate… Watch the sunset… Tell someone you love them… Whatever YOUR version is.

It doesn't have to be big, expensive, productive, impressive, or Instagram-worthy. In fact, maybe it's better if it isn't. Just do something today that makes you think: THIS is what makes my life worth living.

Because today isn't the thing you have to get through before your life begins. This IS your life.

Go live it.