Owning My Brief Life Instead of My Status

The art of living is not about impressing others, but it’s the quiet art of facing the sunrise and the sunset with a bit more alignment between my own knowledge and my own actions,
The art of living is learning to see each problem as a piece of wood that is handed to me, asking if I will burn it in anger or carve it into something that carries true meaning,
But the art of living asks me, when pain arrives, will I only curse it and numb it, or will I also ask what shape it might be offering my truest soul,
And the art of living tells me, I can let the hardest seasons become the deepest lessons, and I can still hold myself gently while I still learn...

Lessons I carry are not the books on my shelf but the habits in my own palm, the way I speak under pressure, the way I treat people when no one is watching,
Lessons I carry are the wise words I chose to remember on purpose, turning them over until they became instinct, not just decorations in my mind,
But the lessons I carry could also ask me, if I were to leave this world soon, would anyone feel the warmth of what I learned by how I lived, or only hear it in a collection of quotes,
And the lessons I carry tell me that I can honor every teacher and every hard moment by letting their echoes guide what I actually say and do today...

Words that stay are the ones that don’t just sit nicely in my notes, but follow me into arguments, into disappointments, into temptations, and into choices that scare me alive,
Words that stay are like tools in my pocket, ready when I need to remember who I want to be instead of defaulting to who I used to be,
But words that stay ask me, in the middle of a real test, will I reach for the tools I’ve been given, or will I pretend I never learned how to hold them,
And words that stay tell me, I can pause, breathe, and remember even one line that pulls me back toward the person I’m trying to sculpt myself into...

Shaping while breathing is realizing this work will never be finished while I’m still alive, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth every careful stroke,
Shaping while breathing is accepting that I’m both an artist and a material, weak but holy, still learning how to cut away what no longer belongs to the future of me,
But shaping while breathing also asks me, if life is already this difficult journey from birth to death, why not use every bit of guidance to move through it with more purposeful intention,
And shaping while breathing tells me, I can keep improving the way I want and at the same time the way I love to be, to respond, and to choose, so that when the final breath comes, my days will show that I truly tried deep into my soul...

Watchwords:
• My thoughts are tools, not ornaments
• I can let wisdom enter my reactions
• I am both the sculptor and a material
• This work continues until my last breath
• Trying to live well is already a worthy aim

Here is Tikatarot, who dares you to answer the question, “Who am I?”..

As and will always be reminding you to dream:
“As you are still the Master of your destiny and the maker of your dreams…”

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