Need a little inspiration out there, Slugger? I’ve got you.

Pardon me—you’ve got you!

I assembled a dozen of YOUR rousing examples of aliveness over the last week or so… and oh, how we love to hear about other people’s joy! (Except when we love to hear about other people’s joy getting stampeded… stay tuned for an upcoming post on schadenfreude—the emotional experience of pleasure in response to another’s misfortune. Humans: we continue to be the worst.)

But back to your aliveness! And joy! And happiness!

Geeky sidebar: Inspiration stimulates the brain’s reward system—especially the release of dopamine, the brain’s party planner chemical, which shows up anytime there’s a chance of pleasure, progress, or pizza. Seeing someone else reach a milestone or do something positive can trigger a subtle but potent cocktail of hope + ambition: “If they did it, maybe there’s a path for a deadbeat like me, too.” This is especially strong when the story includes struggle (cue the montage), which makes success feel earned and therefore replicable.

Okay now back to your satisfaction snippets:

• A former-client-and-now-friend was stressed with a bunch of work stuff. He sent a text that said, “I sat for 10 minutes at the Chicago River eating a sandwich today that helped a bit.” Isn’t it amazing how something so simple can help to slow things down?
  
• My hairstylist is helping to give her “bored with herself” 22-year-old daughter a makeover. They’re going to TJ Maxx to get her a fun “going out” outfit, cutting her super-long hair into a bob (like 12 inches off!), and coloring it. Sometimes we just need a new lease on life. Might you need to cut a foot of your hair off? Why can’t I have a mom who is a hairstylist? (Why can’t I have a mom at all?) (That wasn’t meant to be dramatic.)
• This one’s happy-sad: our neighbors are putting their house up for sale, and explained the reason why as this: “We are moving to the UNESCO world heritage city of San Miguel de Allende, NW of Mexico City. We like the idea of a final adventure and living in the centre of an old city and being able to walk everywhere.” Now I want to do this and it’s not even my “final adventure” phase of life. (Or is it?!)
• I recently published a blog post called “Are You Living Vicariously Through Others’ Lives?”… check out this colossal response: “My wife just passed me an IG reel of a couple who literally flew to Disney World and spent only ONE day there – doing ALL the things, eating ALL the treats…and then they flew home. 24 hours in the happiest place on earth? SIGN ME UP! So, when I told her LET’S DO IT… she was shocked! Guess where we are going for 24 hours!?!? YEP! You guessed it! I’m SO over watching other people live their lives with fun and adventure…I WANT THAT!” Okay now we want that too. Mickey, get ready to cash in.
• A friend of mine went off the path on a hike in Idaho and found 100 wild horses (with lots of foals!) roaming, running, grazing. Am I the only one who can’t not think of the Stones song now? “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away” (except I’m actually hearing The Sundays’ version in my head). When was the last time you went off the path in life? Off piste on a ski run? (Okay now I am afraid for your safety. Please demonstrate caution as you veer into adventure-ey territory.)
• From an Instagram DM… “I thought about my buddy from college, how I was always asking him to regale me with tales of his travels and mischiefs. I decided it was high time I became a mischief-maker myself. I organized a local pub crawl last weekend and I am living to tell the tale.” Why wasn’t I invited to the pub crawl… in Maine? (I wouldn’t have gone even if it was on my street. Who’m I kidding?)
• A new contact shared her love for a neat organization called Action for Happiness; she said “it is the best thing I’ve ever stumbled across in my life. Highly recommend signing up for the free self-directed resources… I can’t recommend it enough, it’s changed my life from 2019 and the ripple effect has positively impacted my family friends and colleagues.” When was the last time you credited something with “changing your life”?
• “My mom is so daring and I love listening to her tell me about these brave things she does, like talk to strangers in the grocery store and trying new hair colors. After I read the article I realized I wanted to be daring, too, so I just booked an appointment to get my hair dyed red. And not just any kind of red, BIG TIME RED. I can’t wait!” This woman who emailed me is on fire.
• “My son takes classes that make me so jealous. I didn’t get to finish college. I just signed up for a history class at the local community centre and I am going to learn something new! About something old!” I am so excited for her that I am having problems breathing. Do you need/ want to sign up for a class? In anything?
• “I realized I scroll through Instagram most evenings and then feel like I’ve wasted my night. I don’t want to quit it so I decided to do it while sitting outside in the backyard, getting a little nature hit at the same time.” Are there compromises you need to make like that, too?
• I just received a note from a new contact that she “gathered the courage to apply to the program”… for a big deal college thing!! Is there a thing you need to “gather the courage” to do? Because it’s in you, even if it’s deep down.
• A friend is moving to Texas so she can be close to the in-laws (a.k.a., built-in babysitters), and even though this has been a reluctant change, she is embracing it like a champ… maybe because there are owls nesting in their huge new backyard?! Are there decisions you’ve been avoiding that you might just need to commit to once and for all, just to “see how it goes”?

Observation that’s painfully obvious but still worth underscoring: Some of your examples reflect a Large and In Charge! kind of life. That’s cool. Other examples are unassuming and uncomplicated, like eating a tuna sandwich by the river on a pandemonium-filled day. That’s cool too. Life needs and wants choices of all sizes and shapes; sometimes the grand-scale gestures are called for (LIKE MOVING TO MEXICO… GAHHHH… CAN WE COME TOO?!?!!?!), and on other days we just need tiny triumphs, demonstrable gestures that we give two shits, small signs of aliveness in an otherwise craparrhea day.

I love, love, love hearing about your examples of aliveness. Please keep sending them my way (my email is jodi at fourthousandmondays dot com and I have a mildly respectable 63% response rate to emails, depending on the craparrhea-ness of the day!).

Let’s get out there and live, before we buy the farm. (Hey: maybe your grand gesture is to actually buy a farm?!?!? OMG please, someone, tell me you’re going to do that.)