Why it’s okay to feel how you feel — and why you should move past it

It’s okay to feel tired. Sad. Scared. Tired again. It’s alright to read too much news, talk about things you can’t change, and eat junk food. It’s fine to play too many games and watch all the TV.

It’s okay not to be okay.

But what comes next? After. Above and beyond this moment?

What happens is what comes next. And what comes next may be the best part of your entire life — and you don’t want to miss it.

You want to create it. 

Because the truth is, whatever has you down, slowed or stopped in your tracks, it’s probably not going to change or go away quickly. It may be out of your control, out of your hands. If the only way for you to move forward is to wait until the path is completely clear, the weather fair, and every piece of news good — well, you may never do anything amazing at all.

And this is the time of amazement, of miracles, and life transforming into something new, unexpected, and beautiful. These next days and weeks will be the most important, fantastic, and meaningful of someone’s life — why not yours?

Someone will fall in love — with their family, with gourmet cooking, with a new career.

People will sit down and write their first play — or their fifty-first. The best movie, album, book etc. of a future year may begin right here and now, in a humble room.

Folks will get out of bed, lace up sneakers and run toward future marathons, toward the best shapes of their lives, toward a health and joy they’ve hardly dared before imagine.

Someone will return to a simple hobby and discover a passion. Someone else will try a new skill and uncover a profound talent. 

One person will discover how beautiful a single flower can be and spend an entire afternoon in open rapture. Another will discover an old, falling-apart book with a sentence that lay hidden for years, in wait to change their whole life.

Phone calls will be made that alter relationships forever and bring people closer, blog posts will be created that bring a slice of light into the darkness, help will be offered with a nonchalance that belies the fact it will be remembered for decades to come by the recipient.

There is so much potential in a day — in every single day. This year, millions may discover a renewed love of poetry, family, outdoors, simple pleasures and games, and of creating imperfectly beautiful gardens, novels, and songs that speak to a gorgeous humanity and wonder they are only beginning to awaken to.

So take your moment. Your day or your week. Feel as you feel. But then begin to feel something else, something more.

Because you would not have been given this present if it did not contain within it a cornucopia of gifts — a bounty of profound direction. What if you asked for an initiation to all your future dreams, of the best possible rest of your life — and the universe sent to you this day?

That is your task, this is your treasure. 

You would not have asked for this day. You would have passed on such an offering. You can think of a lot of better options to get what you wanted, where you wanted to go– this wasn’t supposed to happen.

But this is exactly what happened, and for someone — this challenge is about to become the greatest triumph of their life. 

Fear will be transmuted into a blinding love. Divides will cause people to fall together with the force of planets. Boredom will awaken revelation. Confines will breed a deeper freedom than one has ever known. Tragedy will unmask kindness. Changes will create blessed change.

So I hope you try something new.

And I hope you dare your presumptions.

And love everything beautiful.

And put away everything unneeded, including old assumptions.

I see the potential for the greatest year of all our lives. Because when trials force us to evolve, we emerge stronger, better, more skilled, and more glorious.

None of us knew to ask for this exact moment. Few of us would willingly partake in such an offering. 

But we are all here, together. And in this moment, never has humanity looked so beautiful. I can’t wait to see how you and I and everyone rises to this occasion and transforms the future in ways both unexpected and miraculous, both simple and magnificent, both joyous and profound. 

Welcome to your greatest year (yet).