The Opportunity of Life

“Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts…”
― Robert Fulghum

Life sucks. 

It’s the truth, we all know that it does. It’s an unpredictable concoction of beauty and suffering, pleasure and pain, excitement and monotony. It has the ability to bring you from overwhelming, heart bursting joy, to bottomless despair in the span of a single second.

Life isn’t fair.

We are not all born the same. The measure of suffering in one’s life is indeterminable and unbalanced, some of us abounding in goodness and others in constant pain.

Life is an opportunity.

You only get one. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to spend it agonizing and obsessing over the very real truths that life sucks and that it isn’t fair, or are you going to take the one opportunity that you have been given…..and make something of it?

I am not talking about success or achievements or getting your name written on the annuls of history (though those things are not wrong). No, I am saying that your life is an opportunity to make someone else’s life better.

And maybe not just one someone, but many someones.

We are all born with superpowers in this broken world. These powers come from the conglomeration of your unique talents and personality, your own personal and special ability to make someone’s life more. To help them see past the suffering and inequality and to find beauty and joy in living.

This is why I write.

In my writing I feel the weight of responsibility. Not that I am held accountable for the actions and emotions of others (that is far too heavy of a weight for anyone to carry), BUT I do have opportunity to make their life better, or worse.

As a writer, you should always consider your audience. How they will regard your characters? How easy is it to follow the plot? Is the humor actually funny or only comical in your own mind (which has happened to me more times then I would like to admit)?

But more importantly: Will they go away from reading your writing better? Or worse? 

I write because I want to encourage. To encourage joy. To inspire adventure, laughter, and confidence. To spark a light in someone’s darkness, to make them realize for a moment, that their life can be more than just a sucky unfair eventuality.

As Paul so wisely writes in Ephesians 4:29 of the Holy Bible (NIV),

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

Whether you are a writer or not, consider all of your words carefully, and analyze the contents of your heart. Will you choose to build others up? Or will you tear them down?