The Good Life

"Become unrecognizable by summer!"

“The Good Life”

It is the start of a new year and I think we’re all hoping it will be good. Maybe this will be the year you buy a house, get promoted, run a marathon, fall in love, have a baby, retire early, get hot, get rich, get skinny, get applause, get noticed, get named to a list that verifies your goodness.

Is life really, actually good if you aren’t the envy of others?

Make them jealous!

Do it for the haters!

Level up!

Become unrecognizable by summer!

Have you considered a micro-dose, a new line of credit, a trip to Japan? Have you downloaded this guide, swiped up, swiped right, visited my Amazon Shop, used my discount code, subscribed? Have you tried talk therapy, walk therapy? Have you tried cutting out toxic foods and/or toxic microplastics and/or toxic people? Have you asked ChatGPT? Have you done the thing they told you would change your life and has it yet? Have you? Has it?

It is the start of a new year and I think we’re all hoping it will be good. Praying it will be good. Journaling: “God please let it be good.”

The thing about the Good Life is that we cannot summon it with a strategic plan, manifest it with a spreadsheet, optimize it with a series of alarms that go off on our phones that would make us into one of Pavlov’s dogs. The Good Life is not made of habits, even ones that are good.

I wonder if the Good Life looks more like a collage made over the years of bits and bobs and scraps and snippets—faded, old recipes written in a grandparent’s hand, a card a friend wrote on your birthday, a quote you scrawled on a receipt, a boarding pass for the trip you took with your mom, a movie stub for that film that made you cry, a sticker a kid gave you, a cheesy bookmark an earnest aunt sent you in the mail, a wallet-size, comically bad school photo, a wrapper of a pink Starburst.

At first glance, this collection of items looks like a pile of trash. And to some, it is. It is without meaning, without story, without recognition that everything is made beautiful in its time. But with your eyes, his eyes, it is a picture of the thousand gifts a good life is made up of—memories and testimonies of the people and places that you love and that loved you, too.

The Good Life cannot be curated, cannot be manifested. I’m sorry, but there are no shortcuts. But if you feel you must do something, then try this: try looking, listening, seeing, celebrating. Try moving at the pace of patience. Try trusting that the pieces will come together in time. Try praying.

The Good Life is found when we begin to see that all good things are gifts, are graces, are peaks of light shining through the cracks and filling this world with glory.

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” - Frederick Buechner

Love from Grace