Only L.I.V.E.

J. M. Hawkins and Geoffery Moore

Dear Soul,

If only I get the next promotion, then I will get my life more in balance.

Dear Life,

“If only” is a lonely way to live—it doesn’t even come close to life lived by this one commandment: Only L.I.V.E.(Love Intensely Value Everything)

Dear Soul,

But look at my appointment calendar. It’s packed! I’m too stressed out to think about living more intensely.

Dear Life,

That’s a really scary calendar you’ve got there. Seems to me, you’ve made a lot of appointments with disappointment. Look at all the “maybe-gonna-happens” that you’ve hung so much happiness on. You’ve got a calendar full of expectations—each one of them an engraved invitation to unhappiness.

I recommend that you lose the expectations—even if you keep the appointments. Then, at the top of your calendar write: “No matter what each day brings, I’ve really only got one appointment: To L.I.V.E.”

Today, I’ll disappoint disappointment by making all my appointments with a life that loves intensely whatever happens—no matter what happens—a life that distills whatever happens into joy.

*The Dear Soul/Dear Life dialogs by J.M. Hawkins are adapted and used by permission. They are excerpted from his collection, Word From Soul City and were used in discussion groups that met in cities across America in the 1990s and early 2000s in response to the Life That Loves to Happen seminars with Landon Saunders.