I want to ask you something, and I hope you’ll answer with honesty. Not the answer you think you should give, but the one that’s true. When you woke up today, did you mean to live on purpose, or did the day take over before you could choose?
There’s a difference between moving through life and taking part in it. Both require you to be here. Only one asks you to show up with your whole self.
Think about watching a movie. You might laugh, cry, or tense up. You can care deeply. But you don’t steer the story. You don’t choose the next scene. You sit in the dark and watch someone else’s life unfold. Now bring that image closer. In your own life, are you the main character making real choices, or are you in the audience, watching the days play out?
I’ve worked with many people facing serious illness, and this difference can become painfully clear. A diagnosis has a way of stripping away noise. It can sharpen the question of what matters. Still, you don’t need a diagnosis to ask it. You can ask it right now.
Watching your life can feel safer than living it. It can feel calmer. You wake up, do what you always do, meet the needs around you, go to sleep, and repeat. There’s comfort in the routine. If you never choose, you never risk being wrong. If you never speak your dream out loud, no one can reject it. If you keep your wants quiet, you can tell yourself you didn’t really want them.
But when the lights go out at night and the house is still, what do you feel? Peace? Or that dull ache of being on the sidelines of your own days?
Living on purpose looks different. It’s not clean. It often isn’t neat or praised. It means you make choices without a promise they’ll work out. It means you say, “This matters to me,” and you act like it matters. Even when it costs you comfort. Even when it’s hard.
It can mean letting someone down because you won’t keep betraying yourself. It can mean failing, learning, and trying again. It can mean facing the truth that time is not endless, and your attention is a gift you can’t get back.
This isn’t about a huge makeover or a dramatic life shift. It’s about small, daily choices. Quiet ones. The kind you make when no one is watching.
What do you want to give your attention to today? What’s one thing you’ve been avoiding saying out loud? Where do you need a clear “no” so you can protect your energy? What pulls at your curiosity, even a little? What could you make, write, call, or ask for that feels like you?
These choices are often simple. They can also be brave.
Sometimes the hardest part is admitting you’ve been watching. That truth can sting. It takes courage to face it, because it means you can’t hide behind “later” anymore. It’s easy to stay in the seat and tell yourself you’ll step onto the stage someday. Someday you’ll feel ready. Someday you’ll have more time.
Here’s what I’ve learned in medicine, and in my own life, too: “Someday” can be a gentle lie. It lets us postpone change. It lets fear keep the wheel.
You can start taking part in your life today. Not perfectly. Not with every answer. Just with intention. With one honest choice that matches who you are, not who you think you’re supposed to be.
So I’ll ask again. Are you living your life, or are you watching it happen?
Only you know the real answer. And only you can choose what comes next.
