Let’s imagine you want to be living this kind of life:

But in reality your life looks like this:

Why the tumbleweedy life?

• Maybe you’re in a busy period at work and there’s not a nippy chance in hell you’re getting to that Thursday night pole dancing class.
• Maybe you’re depressed and your couch is the only comforting thing in your life right now.
• Maybe you’re cash-strapped and that long weekend away at that cute little inn isn’t going to pay for itself.
• Maybe you’re lazy; it’s easier to not learn to speak French than it is to conjuguer les verbes français.
• Maybe you’re scared to engage in life, because what happens if you learn how to play the electric guitar/ start biking/ go on that silent meditation retreat/ do whatever you’ve been hankering to do… and your life isn’t all you thought it would for sure be cracked up to be when you got your shit together?
• Maybe you’re not even sure what you want to do with your discretionary time, because you’ve been go go go for so long that you’ve lost the plot on what a cool life might look like?

Phew! So many dredged up Agenda Items for Your Next Therapy Appointment! Now let’s talk about the good news.

Living a life worth living requires less heavy lifting than you might think.

Living like you mean it isn’t an all-or-nothing kind of thing (*insert an “oh thank God” sigh of relief*).

Little bursts of life count, too.

I recently met a woman who went around telling people all through last fall and winter how she regretfully “wasted her summer”—for some reason this summer-squandering really burned her up—so she was determined to make the summer of 2025 count. “How’s it going so far?”, I asked in August. She was delighted to report that summer was going swimmingly. “I went kayaking one morning, and another evening I went for a walk along the beach with my husband who said, ‘why don’t we do this more often?’.” Please note that she did not say she was kayaking three mornings a week or beach-walking at every single sunset. (Please also note her husband’s riveting question: why don’t we do more of what we like to do?) The Summer of 2025 was already deemed a success because she did two deliberate, high-impact things that lit her up. That’s doable, right? Two beachy outings?

A friend of mine shared that having a three-year-old meant her typically-intrepid travel plans would be on hold for a while, because flying with a toddler wasn’t her idea of a stellar vacation (which makes me wonder why they don’t just put kids in the cargo part of the plane along with the big dogs and smuggled drugs?). “We stayed at a local bed and breakfast in the country where my daughter got to pet goats and other farm animals… it was a special time,” she recalled. Please note that she did not say they stayed at a glitzy hotel in a metropolitan city for 14 days with an elaborate itinerary. They had a fun farm weekend! That’s doable, right? Goats?

I have hermit-like tendencies, and yet I also have a desire to experience the interesting facets of life. I used to feel bad about myself for getting swallowed up with work and TV at the expense of participating in life like a champ (OMG have you seen Black Rabbit yet? Get on it!), and now I’ve come to realize that a regular, slow drip of life is enough for me to feel alive. I don’t need to be out most nights at concerts and events and restaurants and classes and tiki bars (*pause to breathe into a paper bag*). Getting a tour of the San Andreas Fault last week, for example, was life-affirming! It was educational, active, scenic, and followed by lunch with a tequila-based cocktail (all my favorite things stuffed into a five-hour period). LIFE WAS LIVED! As I like to say, “We did a thing!” And then I got to go home and get under the blanket on the couch for the next few days. That’s doable, right? A 4×4 tour and a Paloma?

A former client used to ruefully compare her “footloose and fancy-free” life to her current “busy but boring” life. Gone were her days (er, nights) of midnight chilaquiles at Au Cheval in Chicago… “I have to wake up and lead a team,” she’d groan as the clock struck 8pm. So her participation-ribbon-reality now looks like one night out a month where she lets loose—usually not on a school night—and it makes her feel like the kind of person who prioritizes fun/ dancing/ nachos smothered in eggs and cheese in an otherwise routine and responsible existence. “I’m so aware now that all I need is one wild night out a month to be happy.” That’s doable, right?One unfettered night a month? (Yes I did just use the word unfettered and I’m pretty proud of it.)

Let’s stop underestimating the impact of alive-inating gestures that are small and/or less frequent and/or not representative of who we used to be. With every small activity we participate in, we send a signal to ourselves that we’re “the kind of person who does stuff” and that either builds momentum to do more “stuff” (if we want it to) or it can be darned well enough in itself. Not every kayak outing has to be a gateway to becoming a full-time kayaker. Maybe it’s soothingly enough fodder to win the “I Killed Summer 2025” award.

Giving two shits about life doesn’t have to be a full-time job (it can’t be if we are still employed with a Job job, or taming raising kids, or grappling with taking care of elderly parents). Sometimes that satisfying sense of aliveness comes from having a coffee on a park bench… finishing that last chapter of a novel… doing something spontaneous like going out for ice cream on a Wednesday after dinner… trying a recipe that requires the use of your buried-in-the-bowels-of-the-kitchen-cupboards tagine… meditating for 10 minutes a few times this month… you get the idea.

In a decidedly alive life, what small moments can you make count? This month?