No Promises
Wake-Up Call #46
I don’t often read things that move me to tears.
Sun founder and editor emeritus, Sy Safransky’s essay, “This is Hard to Write,” left me struggling to find breath. It’s beautiful. And, brutal. Heart-wrenching. Important. At least, to me (thanks
for bringing it to my attention).A brilliant writer and editor, efforting to pen, let alone find words through deepening dementia, he shares:
It doesn’t matter if my broken heart is breaking again, and I can’t tell anyone why because I don’t have the words. Even if I did, they wouldn’t be the right words.
Later, he adds…
People used to ask me when I planned on retiring. What? Retire from doing what I love? Why? Would I be happier not putting out The Sun every month? Do we ask children at play whether they want to retire from being filled with wonder? Do we ask lovers how much longer before they stop gazing in one another’s eyes? Do the birds retire from singing?
Then…
How readily we ignore the beauty around us, as if this mysterious world weren’t exciting enough. We sit there with our head in the news while the world is trying to talk with us. Or we fall asleep in front of the television, just as the world is reaching out to us so lovingly, so expectantly.
And, finally…
Things fall apart. Move on.
His essay hit me in a similar way that Paul Kalanithi’s book, When Breath Becomes Air did. A brilliant, rising neurosurgeon with a passion for writing and literature, he thought writing might be his second or third act. Cancer arrived. Paul’s wife, Lucy, wrote the epilogue, his death scene. Which utterly destroyed me. In a way that has drawn me to re-read it every few years. To remind me, similar to Sy’s essay, of the fleeting nature of time and capacity. Of the folly of expectation. And the blessing of now.
People sometimes ask me why I seem perpetually involved in so many things. A wild calamity of projects, companies, endeavors. I jokingly reply, “shiny object syndrome. I’m a Maker, I can’t stop seeing things I want to create, or taking steps toward making them manifest.”
Increasingly, I wonder if there’s something else going on. Something related to the feeling Sy’s essay, and Paul’s memoir surfaced. Something that dropped me to my knees on 9/11, and has left me, on some level, perpetually working to get up, rise up, never expecting tomorrow, from that moment to this.
I was a dozen years into what would become a three-decade stint as a New Yorker when the towers fell. Living in Hell’s Kitchen, a then “interesting” neighborhood on the mid-westside. Married, new home, 3-month old daughter. And a 6-year lease I’d signed the day before for a floor in a building. Hoping to open a yoga center. Start a new season of work and life. Make a difference.
By the end of that day, it was clear that friends, including a young dad with two toddlers waiting at home, would never return. Or snuggle in to read his babies to sleep. No one goes to work in the morning expecting their departure to be permanent. And, yet, it happened. Still happens, a thousand times, in a thousands lingering, drawn out, less spectacular, albeit no less eviscerating ways. All day, every day. In a blink. Gone.
That moment planted a seed that’s never left me. The very one books like Paul’s, and essays like Sy’s connect me back to.
A simple message. That’s become a mantra.
We are made no promises. Love the being. Take the trip. Say the words. Bridge the gap. Be the person. Risk the truth. To the extent you have not only the will, but the capacity…
Do. The. Damn. Thing. Now.
With a whole lotta love & gratitude,
Jonathan
Wake-Up Call #46 | No promises.
Simple question.
Have you been putting off doing something, being with or approaching someone, closing a chasm that remains uncomfortably open, and that holds the potential to become one of the stories of your life?
Working within the very real opportunities, responsibilities, and constraints of your circumstances, your life—without being reckless—is there a way to do the thing, or at least taste it, or to take a step toward the person, being or community, sooner, rather than later?
God-willing, there will be another chance. A thousand more, even. And, many beyond that. I wish this for you, and you, and you, and all those you love, and all those you’ll never even know.
But, just in case, what if you centered, rather than relegated these moments and opportunities to the domain of chance or procrastination, letting them lie fallow in the field of a someday that might never arrive?
Think on it. Walk with it. And, maybe, take the first step toward making the thing happen. And, if you’re inclined, share your thoughts in the comments.
PS - My dear friend, sometimes collaborator, and wise-beyond-words Buddhist teacher,
, just launched a podcast called Buddhism Beyond Belief. Funny enough, it’s not really for Buddhists, but rather for anyone who simply wants to learn, from the wisdom of this rich tradition, how to live more presently, and feel more connected and alive. Check it out, follow it, share it around, and leave her a review if you enjoy it.
Who handed us the map,
marked in milestones, etched in expectation—
as if time were promised,
as if we could gather it like petals in our pockets,
as if the bloom were certain.
When will you grow up, they ask.
When will you settle down.
When will you marry, bear children, retire—
as if life were a ledger to be balanced,
as if wonder had an expiration date.
But I have never measured life by their clocks.
I have never asked when
as if time were a gentle thing,
as if it wouldn’t slip through my hands like perfume on the wind.
Instead, I ask—
What waits for me, neglected but alive?
What thread remains unwoven, what name unanswered?
What step have I rehearsed in my mind
but never taken in the world?
If I do not close the distance now, will I ever?
If I do not say the words, will they fade?
If I do not reach, does the space between
become the story I regret?
What if I touched the thing I have only imagined?
If I stepped toward the place I’ve only dreamed?
If I turned the someday into now—
not all at once, but one breath, one word, one motion at a time?
What if we centered the thing,
rather than leaving it to chance?
What if the map was never meant to be followed,
but scattered like breadcrumbs, leading only to now?
So here I am, barefoot in the field of what is,
not waiting for permission, not waiting for time to turn kind.
Today, I will take the step, close the distance,
say the thing that lingers unsaid.
Let them ask their questions.
I have no answers, only movement—
only wonder, only breath, only this.
And to the one who asked—
Jonathan, I thank you.
For holding up the mirror,
for pressing the question into my palm like a gift,
for reminding me, gently but firmly,
that the time to live is now.
Thank you for tagging me in this. Sy's essay came and hasn't really left my veins yet. At least, I don't think it wants to.
As I was reading between the lines of your essay, particularly the reflection on 9/11 and how something dropped you to your knees and left you perpetually working to get up, the ingredients of that moment felt similar to something I've been experiencing for, perhaps, 15 years now. That specific moment in time, of building momentum, the hope of things really making a difference in life/work/all the things, and then something, utter tragedy, then slams you to the ground and something changes everything inside (except you don't quite know what it's done to you).
I was a 20-something who'd just gotten a huge job promotion, for a global law firm. I had negotiated a higher salary (very proud of myself for it, too) and when I met with two friends to celebrate at dinner, I couldn't help but notice they were happy for me but it was all very short. Short smiles, short laughs, short sentences about what I'd be able to do in the new job. On the way out to the car, my friend grabbed my arm and said, "Sweetie, we have something to tell you."
And that's the moment, I can see now, that I began running from an invisible freight train everywhere I went in life. Our friend Renee, a healthy, happy runner, super active, concert-going, 28 year old, had died on a trip with her family. It was likely the moment that I began asking the big questions of everything I was doing in my life, but also at the same time, never quite felt like I could rest inside my work. Once I could say it out loud last year: "The freight train is coming for me everywhere I go," I could start piecing together the ground of pain: Renee's face, how I see her at every birthday, how I wonder who she would be today.
Anyways, I know you asked us if we've put off doing something that could become one of the stories of my life. Maybe it's this. I just need people to know her and I need to talk about the freight train a little more often so it can become something else entirely.🫶