Put Your Face in the Water

So many places I look, people are just swimming on the surface of life.

They're paddling away, kicking and pushing and splashing, trying so hard to stay afloat, to just survive, to exist in this life. They flail their limbs about, they flail their thoughts about, they flail their lives about.

And they stay up. They breathe. They live. But at what cost? They swim on the surface, they get through life ... but do they ever really live?

Maybe there's a better way, a deeper way.

Maybe there's a level to life that they're just not aware of, because they keep trying so desperately to keep their faces out of the water. They're afraid to go under, afraid to get wet, afraid to submerge.

Is this you?

You don't have to answer to me, just to yourself. Is this you?

What if you dunked your head under? What if you went deeper? What if you held your breath sometime and went way under, sure your lungs would explode and your heart would scream, certain you could no longer hold on one second longer ... and what if you still lived?

What if you used everything you had—body, brain, soul—and you really tried every day to be better? 

Not just a little better, but really flipping good, great, better, best kind of better?

The kind of better that drops jaws, that makes strangers write to you, that makes your kids look at you with a kind of sparkle in their eyes and pride in their voice when they introduce you to their friends: "This is my mom."

What if you screwed up—bad—and came back?

What if you saw the deep, dark bottom of your heart, your soul, your life ... and you fought your way back to the surface? What if the air was better, cleaner, brighter, more wonderful than ever before?

It all could happen.

There's a whole world under the surface in this life. Most people never get there. Most people are too scared. It's understandable. And it's okay, if you're content with being "most people."

But if you're not content ... take a deep breath and put your face in the water.