We learn, if we’re willing, not from words as much as we do from living. Living includes actions, trying, mistakes, willingness, open-mindedness, questions, and so much more than mere words. I learn from my life. Many times I have looked back on the life and lives I’ve lived, and wished I had done better at living my life at that time. I look back and wish I had learned more so that I would have lived my life a better way.

And now I don’t want to arrive at tomorrow and think, “I wish I would have learned something yesterday to have lived my life better yesterday.” This can only mean that today is where I work to learn about my life – to learn about what is important to me – to learn about my relationship to myself, to God and to all of the world plus. Today is when I can examine myself. Today is when I can ask my questions to me. Today is when I can pray or meditate. Today is when I can open my heart or open my mind. Today, right now, is the moment I have.

And this calls for me to dig in, to break new ground, to act in some way that has been different, to have my actions speak, to live from my heart, to build from a better blueprint in my mind, all of which hopefully leads to living a life with more effort, and more that I offer to myself and to those in my life.

There is no use in looking back on my life, if it serves only to support the same old crap. If I choose to learn nothing, why bother examining any of my life. I will be the same person on the day I die that I was when I was born – nothing learned, nothing gained. The world will not be a better place because I lived. I will not be a better person because I lived. I would not have given myself anything of worth.

But, in me is the drive to love, to be loved, to live, to grow, to gain, to improve, to find more, to understand, to contribute, and to know me. In me, is the desire to listen to this drive, because it comes from some part of me, from inside me. So, I listen and strive to do something about this.

I don’t strive to accomplish great things over many years of my life. I strive only to pick up a shovel, and shovel a few pounds of dirt a day to build a new river to flow through. And in doing so, sometimes by choosing, today, to shovel a few shovel-fulls of dirt, I’ve looked back and seen that there’s a ditch and a creek growing behind me. It intrigues me that this must be how God does things sometimes. God must have dug and dug each day, and one day, turned around, looked behind Him, and seen the Grand Canyon. I figure God looked down at the shovel in His hands and said, “Wow! It was worth it.”

That’s what I think could be how I learn something from my life today. I have learned and I have grown in my own way. I’ve also had days when I’ve slept in. But, less and less, do I look back at my past and wish I had been in a better place back then. More and more do I look at my present and think “Wow, I learned something interesting today. What can I do with this?”

Maybe one day, I’ll look back at the life I live, trying to learn what I can, and live from what I learn. Perhaps, I’ll see my “Grand Canyon,” look back at the shovel in my hands and say, “Wow. It’s been worth it.” But, even if I don’t reach that far, today I know I’ve answered to a part of me who wants to love more, to live more, to learn more, to be more, and to know me more.

Sometimes, I still need to sleep in.