The American Dream Is Alive

It’s easy to believe the dream is dying. Many imply that it is. But it’s not. It’s alive.

It lives in the pews of the church that welcomes anyone—not just in words, but in action. Even me, someone who has never been baptized. When the priest heard my story, my journey as a spiritual nomad, the first thing he said was, “No matter what you decide, know that you are welcome here.”

It’s in the scribbled pencil and crayon of a child’s unprompted thank-you card for the crossing guard at school.

It’s in the quiet scrape of a shovel clearing snow from a neighbor’s driveway, expecting nothing in return.

It’s in the voice of a volunteer soccer coach, teaching kids to love the game the right way. And maybe even more so in the moment when a kid teaches the coach something back.

The dream breathes in every public servant who moves mountains—not for power or recognition, but simply because the person in front of them needs help.

It’s there whenever one person gives another a gift—of time, of forgone income, of a loaf of bread, of unconditional love, of a Christmas present that truly means something.

It’s woven into every play, poem, song, and film that longs for love, kindness, respect, honesty, and humility. It’s in the best stories we tell—especially the ones about the sublime, and maybe even the divine.

It’s in the kind stranger at the grocery store, who smiles as she rings you up.

The dream is alive in the small mercies of love. When your wife forgives your mistakes and your bad days. When someone asks, How are you?—and actually wants to hear the long answer.

It lives in the person who holds the door open for you, even if it means they’re now one step further back in line.

This dream—this dream to grow and help others grow, to share and live peacefully, to earn and then generously give—is alive. It hides in plain sight, its light so soft and steady that it’s easy to miss. But I see it.

And I won’t let myself stop seeing it.

Because the other option is always there. The temptation to get pulled into the fight, the game, the zero-sum world where winning means taking and shadows are cast intentionally to make everything darker.

That’s one way to live.

But there’s another way. Simpler, but harder.

Keep being a light.
Keep seeing the light.
Keep dreaming of light.

Why 100 Marbles Help Me Accept Life and Death

There are 100 marbles in these two jars. Here’s what they mean.

I went 26 years before Robyn and I started dating, which is why there are 26 peacock-colored marbles at the bottom of the jar on the right.

Then, we were together for three years before we had kids. That’s what the next three marbles are for. They’re a vibrant yellow because those years were our first golden years—just the two of us.

After that, there are 27 multi-colored confetti marbles. These are for the years we’ll have kids in the house. I can’t believe a quarter of them have already moved from the jar on the left to the jar on the right.

Next, there are 24 more golden marbles for the years Robyn and I will have together as empty nesters before I turn 80—just the two of us, again. Real talk, but that’s about how long the Social Security Administration says I’ll live based on my age and sex.

And then there are the clear marbles. There are 20 of them, representing the bonus years—if I’m lucky enough to get them. Living from 80 to 100 isn’t guaranteed, but if I make it, those years will be a mix of divine blessing and pure luck.

Finally, there’s one marble sitting between the jars. That’s this year. Beside it is a card with my New Year’s resolutions on it—those are a huge deal in our family.

I think it’s important to have reminders—clear ones—of our own mortality. Death is certain. It’s a painful thought, yes, but ignoring the truth is worse. Pretending I’ll live forever would guarantee that I’d look back with regrets.

I swear, honest to God, I’m the calmest I am all day when I step out of the shower and see the marbles. I see the “Year of Joy” marble between the jars and it reminds me to play in the basement with my sons after dinner. I remember I need to sweat everyday, to move, to take care of my body.

Those marbles bring me back to a place of radical honesty about my life, my death, and my choices—choices I’m making right now.

If we can accept the hardest truth—that we’re going to die—what else would we ever need to lie to ourselves about? When we accept death, every other problem in life becomes easier to face.

In my experience, the suffering of problems is almost always less than the suffering of avoiding them. Grief, divorce, loss—those are brutally hard, but avoiding them? Blaming other people for them? Lying to yourself about them? That’s worse.

Here’s the thing: we don’t have any real choices until we accept where we are. Denial is a dead end. It keeps us stuck. But once we accept reality, we can start to choose differently.

If “I love you” is the most powerful sentence in the English language, then “I am where I am, but I’m not going to live like this anymore” might be the second.

When we accept hard truth, we don’t need to spin stories about our lives or control other people. We don’t need to make enemies out of others just to avoid fighting the battles inside ourselves. We don’t need to live in a fragile state of fantasy and delusion. We can just get on with it.

And this is where I’ve landed: accepting death is the foundation for living a life of love, character, peace, and responsibility. Why? Because we can take all that energy we would’ve spent avoiding the truth and spend it improving our souls and making things better around us. If you’re more interested in power, status, or avoiding struggle, this radical honesty probably isn’t for you. But if you want something deeper? Start with death.

I use marbles because I’m a visual person. Maybe you need something else—a quote, a photo, time spent with people who are sick or dying. Maybe you need to go to church more or adopt a dog, knowing they’ll go first.

Whatever it is, my friends, find a way to face mortality. Because when we can accept that, we’ll have the courage to face everything else.

I’m not saying any of this is easy, but I am saying it’s worth it. Radical honesty isn’t warm and fuzzy. It doesn’t look great in an Instagram post. But it’s real.

And being real with death is the best place to start.

Days Like These: A Father’s Wish

I forget sometimes how large I loom in their world. But on this Father’s Day, I am reminded of it, and it’s something I don’t want to forget.

All my sons put so much effort and care into my Father’s Day present. It helped me remember that, no matter who you are, as a young kid, the people who raise you are your whole world. Mothers and fathers are just…giants to a kid. All children explore this, fascinated and in awe. That’s why all kids put on their parents’ shoes and mittens and walk around in them.

“Maybe someday,” we wish, “these will fit and I’ll get the chance to be like them.”

Mothers and fathers are giants to a kid.

This is such a gift of love, not just for our joy and hearts but for the people we will become in the future.

I’ve been thinking about how this year, on my birthday, my perception of age changed. When we’re young, the first change comes when you realize how awesome it will be to be older: bigger, stronger, and more free. Then you hit the invincibility years of your twenties, wishing to stay 27 or 28 forever.

Next come the years of control—or lack thereof, I suppose. There’s not enough money, not a good enough job, the kids grow up too quickly, and you find yourself nervously joking about the increasing gray in your hair or talking about revisiting old haunts to recapture fleeting youth.

Then my 37th birthday hit, and my perception of age changed again. It was a birthday where I thought, “Damn, I’m just glad to be here for it.”

Why? Because I became very conscious of how our table grew more crowded this year, not less. This year, we’ve added children, brothers, and sisters to our table of friends and family. And we lost almost nobody. I’m old enough now to realize how rare and precious birthdays like this one will be from here on out.

So yes, when I blew out the candles on my pineapple birthday cake this year, my wish was: “Thank you, God, for letting me celebrate this birthday. My wish is for my next birthday to be like this one, with our table more crowded, not less.”

One of my greatest fears about death now is not the pain, suffering, and uncertainty that surrounds it—though that’s still a real fear. I have started to fear that a birthday will come—especially if my friends and family are gone, and I’m the last one standing—where I won’t wish for another one.

That’s the final change in our perception of age: moving from a place of peace and gratitude for our life—where we’re just happy to be here—to hoping for death to come peacefully, but also soon. I don’t want to ever slip into that last phase of age. I hope this last birthday, where I was just happy to be here and hoped for another birthday, is the last time my perception of age meaningfully changes.

No matter what happens, I know today that I have mattered to my sons. Days like these, marked by little celebrations and small gestures of love, remind us that we mattered to someone—whether it was our kids, friends, family, colleagues, or neighbors—that we loomed large.

These little Father’s Day gifts, like the ones I received today, are more than just presents. They are symbols we can hold onto as we age, reminders that we loved and were loved. These symbols of love will always give me hope and a feeling of worth, a reason to keep wishing for more birthdays. Because we were loved once, there’s always hope that each day we wake up, there will be that light of love again—whether it comes to us or is the light we carry and gift to others.

Light only spreads exponentially

We start with nothing.

And that in a way gives us a beginning. Nothing is from where we all start.

What we need first then, to spread light, is a candle. We need substance. We need our bodies. We need education. We need love. We need food, a home, and a place to work. We need all these things, which are a vessel to sustain light. For some, this candle is a birthright or a gift. Some of us must make our own.

Next, we light the candle. We figure out something which illuminates. We do something which illuminates. Maybe, too, our candle is lit by others and we are illuminated with a light that has been passed on to us. We somehow find a way to bring light into the world and there we are, with candle lit.

But this is not how light spreads. One candle, alone, does not illuminate a whole world of dark places, or even a whole city, or neighborhood, or even one room necessarily. To light up the world we must spread our light.

So we light our candle or let ourselves be lit, then we light two others. That makes three. But this is not enough, either, because three lit candles that will all wax and wane for a moment and then extinguish at the end of a life is surely not enough to illuminate a room, a neighborhood, or a world.

So what then? 

The algorithm to spread light is simple, I think. It’s a compounding algorithm. We light our candle, then we light two others. But then, those two must light two others. And then those four light two others each. This is how light spreads, two by two by two. Light only spreads exponentially.

So what this means is that as parents, to really spread the light we cannot stop at being good parents, or teaching our kids how to be parents - we teach our kids to be teachers of parenting and be teachers of parenting ourselves. We cannot stop at being good people managers, or by mentoring the next generation of leaders, we must teach our mentees to make more mentors.

We can’t just make the light. We can’t just spread the light. We must teach others how to spread light. This is the algorithm for spreading light: light, spread, and teach how to spread.

—

We end with nothing.

What remains of us is what we leave behind. So a key question becomes, what should we try to leave behind?

First, I think we should leave behind something good. Something positive that benefits others and leaves the world better for us being there. Human life is a special thing, even after accounting for all the suffering it possesses. Why not leave something behind which honors this human life, this earth, and brings light to dark places?

It seems to me, that if we leave behind something positive and good we ought to leave something that endures, too. Leaving behind something enduring, that illuminates and gives light for a longer time, is better than something that fades quickly.

I don’t know if nothing lasts forever, or maybe some things last forever after all. But given the choice, why not strive for something closer to forever? But what endures, then? What lasts closer to forever?

Even if I were the wealthiest man alive, and passed down the largest inheritance - it would maybe last a few generations. All my photographs, too, will eventually become irrelevant. Our home will eventually change hands, and will be rebuilt or razed.  My blog posts, hardly relevant to begin with will be forgotten. Anything that can be consumed, it seems, will eventually fade.

The chance we have then is to leave behind something that can regenerate itself?.

Kindness, for example, regenerates itself. Because when we are kind, it makes others kinder, and that in turn makes even more others kinder. Kindness regenerates. Knowledge is similar. When we create and share knowledge, it inspires the creation of new knowledge, leaving behind a larger body of knowledge from which to create. Knowledge also regenerates.

Good institutions are designed to regenerate. Think of the world’s leading companies and the most enduring governments.

The ones that last are built upon a premise of looking outward, seeing the new needs and having a genuine concern for a noble purpose. Those institutions then take the challenges of a changing world, channel them inward, and then regenerate themselves into something new. The moment that the most established of the world’s most high-profile institutions - like the world’s religions traditions, liberalism, Apple Computer, the US Constitution, or even Taylor Swift - stop regenerating themselves, they’ll begin to fade away like all the rest.

—

So the absolute, most essential question I could answer related to spreading the light is - what can I leave behind that’s positive and might actually last? If when I leave this world, I am only what I leave behind - what can I leave behind that regenerates and endures?

I don’t believe that careers and promotions are regenerative. The enduring impact of my position or title will start fading when I retire and end completely when I die. Nobody will care about my LinkedIn profile after I’m out of the game.

But what will last is a coaching tree of ethical and effective managers if I’m able to create one. What will last is the knowledge of unmet customer needs, if I’m able to bake that understanding into the DNA of companies and institutions. If I can build teams that don’t depend on fear, control, and hierarchy  - and those teams actually succeed - they’ll regenerate and create more teams of their own. Those things regenerate, not my career in and of itself.

Simply having a happy marriage and happy children won’t regenerate either. What might last is if we can make such an impression on those around us and share all our secrets for a happy life, so that it starts a chain reaction which regenerates the families and marriages of others, that might endureHaving a wonderful marriage and happy children would be terrific, but those two achievements on their own won’t endure. What will endure is figuring out the secret sauce and then open sourcing the recipe.

When I talk to older people - whether friends or family - their concerns are different than mine. They seem less concerned with what they have and more concerned with what they can give back. As their time winds down, so does their ego. They start to look beyond their own lives.

What’s gut wrenching is when those people can’t prove to themselves that they’ve spread light. Or when they believe they haven’t prepared those that follow to spread light. Or worst of all, when they believe they’ve run out of time. Because spreading light and preparing others to spread light takes time. To see that realization is to witness agony.

—

What the hell have I been doing? For these past three decades, what have I been solving for? Have I been solving for building the world’s biggest candle? Have I been solving for lighting my own candle? Or have I been solving for spreading the light?

If I was solving for spreading the light, I think I would be acting so much differently than I am now.

I wouldn’t care as much about a career trajectory or a “dream job”, I’d just be walking the path of greatest different and would be spending much more time building up others to succeed and teach others.

I too, would be thinking about how to help others outside the four walls of our home, or at least really being generous with time and energy for the people who live near us or who are closest to us. I wouldn’t be waiting for the perfect cause to support or the perfect kid to mentor. I’d just be going for it and creating more builders of others.

And, I certainly wouldn’t be spending as much time pouting about all the others who behave badly toward me or be putting up a facade of politeness. If I was really solving for spreading the light, every conversation I had would be open, honest, sincere, and showing genuine concern for others. It’d be all heart and no polish.

If I were solving for spreading the light, I think I would be acting much differently. God willing, I have time to be different.

Photo by Rebecca Peterson-Hall on Unsplash

Our stories are about light

In his 2019 memoir, A Dream About Lightning Bugs, musician Ben Folds reveals the meaning of the title a few pages into the manuscript. It was a dream he had as a kid, where he would be in the thick of summer and with awe be catching lightning bugs in a jar.

But for Folds, catching lightning bugs is more than just a whimsical childhood dream, it became a metaphor for the meaning of his life. In the first few chapters, Folds explains that he sees his purpose to catch lighting bugs, through his music, and share that momentary wondrous glow with others. That’s what he’s here for, to catch and share the light.

I heard this story about 15 minutes into a run, while listening to an audiobook of Folds’ memoir.

Damn, I thought while trodding up Livernois Avenue, metaphors about light are so powerful and universal. Why is that?

When really zooming out, what are our lives, really, other than a sequence of concentrating energy, reapplying it somehow, and embracing its dissolution? And what is light, but a transcendent and beautiful form of energy? So much of how we understand our own existence, too, can be thought of as a relationship between light and it’s absence. In a way, all our stories, our most important ones anyway, can be understood as a relationship with light.

As I kept running, Folds in my ear, I continued to think. Folds’ deal is lightning bugs, but why am I here?

I’m not here to be a lighthouse, I need to be with people in the trenches, not guiding from a distance. I’m not here to be a telescope, pondering into the heavens trying to decipher the secrets of the faintest sources of light. I’m not here to be commanding the spotlight to bring voice to the voiceless. I’m not here to be a firework, illuminating celebrations with color and magic.

Why am I here? What’s my dream about light?

We find ourselves often, in a dark, wet, cave. As Socrates might argue, perhaps that’s the state we are born into. If that’s true, I think I am here to make a fire, creating a light. I’m here to transfer that light onto a torch and find the others in the cave. I am here to take my torch and light the torches of others, give light away as fast as I obtain it. I am here to leave lanterns at waypoints as we go, making the once dark cave, brighter. And maybe I won’t survive long enough to find the way out of the cave. That’s okay.

My dream is not one about lightning bugs. My dream is one of making light, and sharing it with others so we can all go home someday.

I think this is a belief I’ve held for a long time, without consciously realizing it. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been writing this blog for almost 20 years, for no money, and resisting click-bait topics to gain an audience - even though sometimes I feel like I’m singing into a dark, empty cave. I can’t help but share the little bit of light I think I’m discovering with others. It’s what I’m here to do.

It’s so audacious, I think, to engage in this enterprise of “purpose”. Figuring out why we’re here? Trying to understand what our life is supposed to mean? It’s heavy, big stuff. I don’t really have it figured out, and I think anyone who claims they have a magic formula to figure it out is probably lying.

But this exercise, forcing myself to examine my life and turn it into a dream about light was useful. It worked. I don’t have all the answers, but I do feel clearer, about what my life is not, at least. If you’re similarly foolish and trying to figure out why you’re here, it’s an exercise I’d recommend to you, no matter who you are or what your backstory is.

Because, at the end of the day, all our stories are about light.