If you’re reading this, it means you woke up this morning.  

 

Maybe some of you woke up this afternoon.  But the point is, you woke up today.  Every year, in the U.S. alone, there are close to 3,500,000 people who don’t have a today, who won’t have a tomorrow.  That’s over 9,000 Americans every day – who went to bed one night – tired, happy, sad, alone, married, young, old, full of hope or full of regret – who likely never knew, never expected, that the next day would be their last.  On a global level, we’re talking a staggering 70 million humans – brothers, sisters, distant relatives, strangers – almost 200,000 people, every single day, whose one day is their last day.  

Year after year, the number one leading cause of death is heart disease.  And perhaps more tragically, when you expand the list to the top 10, which includes: cancer, stroke, respiratory diseases, diabetes, kidney disease – what you discover they have in common, aside from robbing someone of another dawn, emotionally destroying a family, creating a gap in some social or professional circle – is that they are largely preventable.

 

Full stop.

Re-read that last sentence.

 

There are no guarantees, and accidents, tragedy, and other health issues will always be prevalent, will always prematurely, spontaneously, or in due course, end all human life.  The only two absolutes in life – you were born, and you will die.  Nothing you do will ever alter that course.  That knowing brings misery to some, peace to others, indifference, urgency.  But there is no job, no money, no relationship, no habit, no attitude or apathy, that will change the outcome.  Our collective journey is from the cradle to the grave.  With hope and grace, the distance between the two is far and wide, plentiful and vibrant.  But there’s no guarantee of that either.

Another tragic reality.  The average life expectancy continues to fluctuate, in recent years dipping, from 78 to 76 years old, and now slowly creeping back up.  Even with all our advancements in medicine, science, study, treatments, there are no assurances, there will always be variation, change, subject to environment and circumstance.  Maybe one day that will reverse.  Maybe one day you will be the one who contributes to that shift.  But for today, know and understand, that for the average person, who woke up and found themselves one year older, they may have actually lost three years of living.

 

What happens when we take that living for granted?  When we wake, stumble through another uninspired routine, a litany of checklists and things to do?  Or even when we resign ourselves to the inevitable, that no matter who we are, or what we do, that we are destined for the same course, a similar plot of land, as everyone else?  On the surface, nothing.  There’s still life, if we have breath, and for likely most, nothing happens.  There’s still the alarm clock, still the job, still the endless tasks, the family to take care of, or kids to worry about, or the self to motivate.  We sprinkle in a break here, a vacation (really and truly?) there.  Maybe we binge watch a show, scroll through our phones, we connect with people, and disconnect from others.  We’re busy, we tell ourselves.  We’re doing things.  We’re making it happen.  This is just life.

Is it?

 

What if you knew, absolutely and certainly, just knew, that today would be your last.  What if you knew you would be a statistic, not making it to 76 or 78 or 92 or 24, but that at whatever age you are, right now, today – this was it?  Remember, as morbid as it may be, that all around the world, roughly 200,000 people are living their last day, right now, today.  Only, they don’t know it.  But what if, by some miracle, or cruel jest, you knew.  Would that change things?  Would that knowing alter your mindset, your perspective, your attitude, your doing?  Would you rail against the injustice, shake your fists, and recklessly spend your money, be wild, be crazy, go out in a blaze of glory?  Or would calm acceptance find you, a peaceful surrender, a personal lament that you did the best you could, and while not perfect, you tried to pay it forward, to leave the world a little better?  

I think most of us fall in-between those lines.  Balancing the impetus to throw it all away and the willingness to go quietly.  What holds us together, keeps us walking that line and striking that balance?  The unknowing.  Or should I say, the thinking we know that we have a tomorrow.  That our obligations will remain, the potential for guilt and regret is strong, the urge to delay is ever-present.  There’s a tomorrow, we are convinced.  And so we demonstrate restraint, but also procrastination.  Dreams have died on the delta between the two, while our bodies live on.

But what if there was a way to do both?  To live boldly and bodily.  To dream and to do.  Not only to quest for treasure, but to slay the dragon.  To live with a motivated sense of deep purpose knowing that today might be our last, without neglecting the potential for a tomorrow.  What if there was a path, through inspired action, to chase down all the things you’ve ever truly wanted to do, without avoiding the things you have to do?  What if there was a way to lean in, and embrace doing hard things, not with resistance, but with a smile and a snarl, and a yearning for more?

 

There is a fire in you.  I know it.  The coals may have cooled, and the embers dulled.  But deep down, in the places covered by age, or lethargy, or time, or fear – there remains a spark.  From a spark, you can light a fire, stoke a blaze that sings to the heavens.  And from that blaze, you can forge yourself into something new, stronger, resilient, adaptive.  The fire and the forge won’t protect you from the unknowing of tomorrow, but they will make you fearless in the face of today.  And isn’t that really all we have?  Today.

Forge You.  It’s a call to action.  It’s a mindset.  It’s a clarity and a purpose.  It is both the vision and the doing.  The anvil never fears the hammer, for between them they reshape, repurpose.  You, friend, are both fire and sword, and today begins your journey.  Wake up.  It’s time to get to work.  It’s time to Forge You.