Sometimes, I look back on my life and how busy and full it’s been…and get exhausted simply by the act of looking. ⁠
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In those moments, I remember that what sustains me isn’t just events and movies and friends and travels and work…but gaps. ⁠
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Gaps are not empty, a void, cold.

Gaps are warm, fully, luminous.

Gaps in which I might enjoy my food, fully, enjoy a friend, fully, listen to a stranger’s story, enjoy the view of mist over the harbor, fully, enjoy holding my mom’s hand, fully.

Those moments are life. The rest is speed, noise, blather. That, too, is life, but it is not fully present with itself.

~

Sometimes, all we do is rush all day, rush all week, rush all month, rush all year, rush through our lives.

Sometimes, we rush even when we can give ourselves a break. We surf our phone or busy ourselves when we could do nothing.

Sometimes, often all we have to do is pause and really look for two seconds.

Maybe…three.

As Buddhists love to say, “nothing happens.” 

When nothing happens, we start being present with our world, and our life. We start breathing again.

We start smiling, and feeling our sadness, and feeling brave enough to feel—to be present in our own life.