“Projects keep us young,” Gary insisted when I asked if he thought we should take on something new we’ve been considering.
“This will be a big one,” I laughed. “Soon, we’ll be eighteen again.”
And so begins Project Aliveness.
Gary has always loved a project, especially one that requires something of him. His father often told him, “The day you retire is the day you begin digging your grave.” By retire, he wasn’t talking about leaving a profession or finally having time to call your own. He meant retiring from engagement with life.
There is a difference.
A project can awaken something in us. Suddenly, there are questions we haven’t asked before, things we don’t know how to do, decisions without obvious answers. We imagine, learn, reconsider, become beginners again. Life asks us to participate.
Maybe projects don’t keep us young as much as they enliven us.
Curiosity gives us a reason to lean toward tomorrow, wondering what we might discover and who we might become along the way.
When was the last time you began something that required a future version of you?
Beginning something we don’t yet know how to do creates a fascinating relationship with ourselves. We have to meet ourselves there. Somewhere between I don’t know and I’ll find out, another part of us becomes visible.
Fully Alive
Aliveness doesn’t require a grand undertaking.
Some mornings, I sit outside for a long time watching the trees and listening to the birds. Their songs fill me with tremendous joy. I become absorbed by the movement of a branch, the arrival of another bird, the changing light. I may appear to be doing very little, yet I could hardly feel more alive.
Those mornings are every bit as much a part of Project Aliveness as anything Gary and I could build, create, or undertake together.
Because…
Aliveness isn’t measured by how much we do. It is felt in the depth of our presence.
Perhaps that becomes increasingly precious as the years accumulate: remaining available to our own lives, present enough to notice what brings us joy, and willing to meet ourselves anew.
Project Aliveness
Project Aliveness is bigger than any single project. It is a relationship with being here.
When we remain engaged, tomorrow can become interesting before it arrives. There is still more to experience, more to love, more of ourselves waiting to be revealed.
That’s why Gary’s words stayed with me. Aliveness may challenge and expand us, or it may find us sitting beneath the trees listening to birdsong. The form matters far less than the feeling.
Maybe the most vital question is:
What brings you alive?
Go toward that.