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Dear Subscriber First Name, This weekend I will turn 65 years old. For much of my life, I didn’t expect to live this long, which makes it an especially meaningful birthday. But I’m honestly not sharing this fact in order to solicit kudos or well-wishes. Instead, I am sharing it aloud because - for me - gratefulness is grounded in remembering and recognizing that each day we get to be alive was never promised to us. Given this, 65 years x 365 unexpected days feels pretty miraculous. As a practice, I make every effort not to take the experience of being alive for granted or to forget that it could have so easily been otherwise…and one day it will be. Living gratefully is humbling, and it inspires awe that I want to share. In the midst of the many deeply distressing things happening in our world right now, how might embracing all that is unpromised and uncertain help us to cope? Why might we want to learn to lean into what we appreciate and let go of what we expect? Because expectations dull us to the magnificence and value of what we have within and around us. We forget to be grateful for, and awestruck by, all the extraordinary things that our expectations relegate to the ordinary. And also because expectations fool us into taking distressing things for granted, deadening our ability to behold and respond with active hope to what is heartbreaking. When we take the hardships and harms of our world for granted, it’s as if we are saying with certainty, “that’s just the way it is.” A sense of possibility, however, lives in the very uncertainty we so readily avoid. As Rebecca Solnit wisely says, “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don't know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.” If we can stay curious rather than certain, tender rather than steeled, and engaged rather than resigned, we might nurture the sense of hope and aliveness we so desperately need right now. And we might just find that our capacity for activation grows precisely as we let our expectations go. I have always said that gratefulness is an activator, not a pacifier. We are moved and motivated by the things we value and are grateful for. Gratefulness generates a sense of awe, belonging, passion, and hope. These states all require us to be fully present and wide awake to life as it is and - in turn - keep us actively invested in serving what we cherish and value most. My birthday wish is that you will join me in celebrating, quietly and aloud, in your own ways, that every day matters. And that you might consider sharing with me how this moves you. I hope that the care-fully curated resources in this museletter offer you abundant inspiration and support. Until soon, stay soft and strong. From my heart to yours -
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