Greet Yourself With Kindness

Using the power of attention to create your own meaning of life

Hello, Fellow Travelers!

Before we get to today’s essay, I wanted to remind you that I am still offering to create custom haiku comics on a pay-what-you-want basis.

Just email me or DM me here on Substack and let me know who you want the comics for (feel free to get one for yourself!) and a little about what you would like the haiku comic to be about. Then, I’ll make you a custom comic, and you can tip me through PayPal or Venmo for whatever amount you’d like.

These make great gifts and can be printed out if you’d like.

You can learn more right here.

Greet Yourself With Kindness

When the sun has been put to bed at the end of another day, do you hold a memorial service or a celebration?

What did today mean? I’m an absurdist at heart. I believe that the only inherent meaning in this life is the meaning we choose to make. Since my life will pass no matter what I decide to do with it, I choose each day to create meaning through gentleness, kindness, and creativity.

In the cycles of the sun and the moon, I choose to see a celestial drama that the cycle of my life is a mirror image of. The dawn is a sacred gift — a new birth. It signifies the start of a day whose entire purpose and contents are determined by my actions.

The sunset and the moonrise signal the end of a ritual sacrifice to the gods. A piece of my life has been offered up. Was it a worthy sacrifice — one willing given? Or was it a reluctant offering — one I was compelled to part with despite my desire to hold onto that sliver of life just a little longer?

You and I have a set number of days. Neither you nor I know how many of those days we are allotted. Today is probably not my last day, but it could be.

You will, in all likelihood, will greet the dawn tomorrow, but that is not guaranteed.

If the stoics are right that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything, then the way you move through one day is the way you move through every day.

I don’t care how much money you made today. I do not care how productive you were or how clever you were.

In the end, what does that matter or mean? After your final sunset, you will move on without your money. On the first day you don’t wake up, will you care about a clever retort or a missing report?

Each day, you choose what your life will mean. You can greet yourself and others with kindness, cruelty, or indifference. You can perform your duties with conscientious joy, distracted apathy, or angry insolence. The sun will rise and set regardless.