Nothing is wasted in the universe, so your life cannot be for naught. Your life may not be the life you wanted, but it is your life. Your dreams may be yet to come. Objections keep you from fulfilling your desires. Objections hold you back. All the reasons you conjure up for not fulfilling your dreams when there is only one reason necessary to fulfill them, and that is the dream itself.

Your dream fulfilled is not the fulfillment. That has been proved to you time and time again. Winning the race is not the fulfillment. Whatever is short-lived is not fulfillment. It is merely a momentary pause. The desire is the fulfillment. The going for it is the fulfillment. The act of reaching is the fulfillment. Achieving is merely punctuation. Perhaps an exclamation mark. What is finished is done with. What is unfinished is the enterprise.

It is true that everything in the relative is relative. One swims the English Channel. Another swims across the pool. A child splashes in the tub. It is all the same. You participated. And you participated with joy. My hope is that you did. Making it to the other end is just something you can say you did. But the swimming, the splashing, the moving the arms — oh, therein lies the fulfillment.

Everyone makes it through life. That is not in question. You will come out the other end. That is foregone. So it is the meanwhile that you savor, not merely the getting through. Endurance is not something to seek. Enjoyment is. Enjoyment is worthwhile. Not much else is. Meanwhile you are in life and you are living it to whatever extent you do. It is the meanwhile that stirs you.

The vastness of your life is not at stake. You know it is far vaster than you grasp. The vastness is not in question. The nearness is. This moment is.

Life is something you enter into, and you enter it at every moment. Your life has its start right now. Your toe is at the starting line. You are girded for life. There is nothing to do but enter into it. In your own way, you enter into life, for this life is yours to do with as you will.

Your life is not something you abscond with nor is it something you offer only to others. But the time will come when you do not know the difference between you and others, and you will know that your life is something proffered to the world. Your life is your own bone to chew, but it is not only your own bone. You are part of a mass life, and you are a key player. Whatever you may think of yourself and your life, you are a key player. There doesn't have to be a number on your shirt. You don't even have to have a shirt.

You don't even have to have a name. You bear one name. Child of God.

The world was given to you, and you were given to the world. There is something very reciprocal going on here. You feed, and you are the feeder. You are the host, and you are the guest. You are the one who serves, and you are the one who is served. Whatever titles the world gives you are of no consequence. Divisions are arbitrary. Truth is not. The truth is the same. Truth picks no favorites.

You are of great importance. You are the one swimming in eternity. You are the mover of the waves. Do not fool yourself that you or your life don't matter. You matter.