Something changed in me this year. I know, because I was on the phone with a friend a few weeks ago. I was telling her about all the work I’m putting in with Stry and Very Quotatious and the fellowship, and she didn’t say anything.
And then I saw her a few days later, and I told her that I was speaking at TEDxMU, and I mentioned that I’d started working out with a trainer for the Belly Challenge, and she just stared at me. It looked like she was trying to X-ray me, to look straight through me, to figure out whether or not she was talking to the Dan she used to know.
She knew something had changed. She knew that I’d started to find a new center.
I started to realize it, too. And I started to think about what had changed. And then it hit me. It feels like just a moment ago that I figured it out:
I fell in love.
And here I am writing it, and not caring how cheesy it sounds:
I fell in love.
And again, and again, because it is too wonderful not to say:
I fell in love.
I fell in love with the waking up in the morning absolutely full of awesome. With the feeling that I have when I’m absolutely exhausted after a workout. With the smile I have on my face when I cross something else off my TeuxDeux.
I fell in love with doing. I fell in love with building things. I fell in love with the work.
And then I started to notice a whole world full of fellow builders. Turns out I’d lived in this world the whole time, and I’d barely noticed.
I know now: We live in a world where amazing things happen. We live in a world where there are so many people putting the tiniest dents in the universe. We live in a world overstretched with awesome.
I used to be stressed, and I still am. But now, stress is good stress. Excited stress! The “We’ve got a deadline to make because we’ve got shit to do!” kind of stress.
I find myself smiling a lot. I find myself in front of journalism classes, running around and jumping on chairs and yelling about building things and being awesome, and the students look at me wondering how much Starbucks it takes to make me this loud at NINE FUCKING O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING ON A TUESDAY, and then I tell them that I don’t drink coffee, and they look at me like I am absolutely mad.
And I am. You have to as mad as I am to do the things that I want to do.
There is so much to do, and there is not enough time, but that’s okay. The truth is, there is enough time for now.
And the truth is: When you are as in love as I am, it feels like I have all the time I will ever need.
And the truth is: When you are as in love as I am, time hardly matters at all.
What we build is what matters, and time is only there to show how long it can last.