say i won't

​It was about a month ago. I was driving. My life was doing somersaults in my head. My heart was somewhere in the back seat. The voice in my phone, the one telling me to turn left 300 feet ahead, was about as much direction as I could gather in that moment.

Then on that same phone - came a message. A message that's grown louder and more powerful every day since.

The message was from my friend Michelle. She was sending me a song to listen to. Listen to this now, she said. So I did.

The song was Say I Won't. The first words of that song say this:

Today
It all begins
I'm seeing my life for the very first time
Through a different lens
Yesterday
I didn't understand
Driving 35 with the rocket inside
Didn't know what I had
While I've been waiting to live
My life's been waiting on me

I listened to that song a hundred times, I suppose, before I ever heard the words that came after those opening lyrics. It felt like those opening words - like a captor - wanted me stuck in them.

I could not shake the image of my life waiting on me. Like - it was out in front of me - 300 feet ahead - at that turn - shaking its head. My life would not stop shaking its head.

We can spend a lot of time wrestling with life. And many days, that's simply the best strategy we have to avoid living life. Trying to figure out who I'm supposed to be, that's the easiest way to dodge the fear of being who life needs me to be.

Wrestling with life - that's driving 35. That's driving 35 with life up ahead saying, hey, you do realize you have a rocket inside, right?

Every year on this day, the first day of the new year, for as long as I can remember now, I've said I'm going to write a book. Every year, that's been because I wanted to write a book - I wanted to be an author.

Today, once again, on the first day of the new year, I'm saying I'm going to write a book. But this time, it's not because I want to write a book, it's because life's been waiting on me to contribute the words it needs me to contribute.

While I've been waiting to write, life's been waiting on me.

Every year on this day, for as long as I can remember now, I've said I wanted to get out and speak more and teach more. Every year, that's been because I wanted to be a speaker and a teacher.

Today, once again, on this first day of a new year, I'm saying I'm going to speak more and teach more. But this time, it's not because I want to be a speaker or a teacher, it's because life's been waiting on me to contribute the lessons it needs me to teach.

While I've been waiting to teach, life's been waiting on me.

And you know, I think what life is waiting on me to do most, and maybe you too, is to help people discover their rockets inside. Because when someone comes alongside you, and helps you discover your rocket, and maybe even ignites that sucker and sends it roaring towards the moon, life wins.

Life wins because it stops standing on a corner waiting on people and starts flying. Like a rocket.

My word for this year is ROCKET. Because I want to be one; I want to help others find theirs. There is no greater gift - helping one another discover they are driving 35 when they have a rocket inside.

There is no stronger way to love one another.

My phrase this year is "SAY I WON'T."

To start every single day this year, starting this morning, the first thing I'll do is listen to the song I'll include in the comments below.

You know, there's an evil corner of life that likes to tell us that we won't. And too often, I and maybe you, we hang out there - we park ourselves there - listening to life tell us we don't have what it takes to be rockets.

This year, I and maybe you, we need to storm out of that corner. Instead of LISTENING to life say we won't, we need to start DARING life to say we won't.

Not enough
Is what I've been told
But it must be a lie
'Cause the Spirit inside says I'm so much more
So let them say what they want
Oh I dare them to try

In 2021, listen to that spirit inside. Discover that you are so much more.

Find your rocket.