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What if we were a YES to life?

Not a forced yes.

Not a performative yes.

But a yes that removed the resistance, and doesn’t argue with the moment.

This isn’t about positivity — it’s a much deeper realization than most people understand, and it can fundamentally shift everything.

Let me explain what I mean. 

It’s not needing life to be different before you allow yourself to enjoy it.

Accepting it as it is.

Choosing life exactly as it is, right now.

Pause for a second.

What reaction came up when you read that? 

Read it again, and notice your immediate response before the mind jumps in.

This discussion can be transformative — depending on how you connect with it.

If you think about it there are really only two ways to live. 

Either, life is something that is happening to us, in which case we have very little agency — or it feels like something we are participating in.

When life is happening to me, I’m passive.

When I choose it, I fully participate — and that changes everything.

But I want to take you a step deeper than choosing. 

Because beneath choice is something more fundamental.

It’s the act of being responsible for it all.

I don’t just mean for ourselves.

But for all of life, 

For the whole thing.

Every aspect.

Actually why not for the whole universe!

This is a radical concept so let's explore it.  

When we are responsible we step out of being acted upon and into being the author of our life.

There is nowhere to hide, no one to blame.

It’s not that we don’t feel any responsibility now — we simply limit it to our immediate circumstances, to what’s right in front of us, which gives us a very short reach.

But when we are responsible for everything, the reach of our lives becomes vast.

All possibilities become available to us.

Look. Whether you like it or not, this is where you are — in this body, in this moment, in these exact circumstances.

But what if, as you moved through your day, you did so as if you were responsible for life — being present, available, responding where you can?

Here is where your logical mind is going to take away what I’m trying to teach.

Of course I’m not saying you can fix everything, or that you should carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You can’t do everything that’s needed. 

That’s not the point. 

Let me clear something up before I lose you.

It’s subtle but important: being responsible and action are not the same thing. 

Your actions are limited by time, energy, circumstance.

Being responsible is limitless.

I’m responsible for everything… but I can only act on what is immediately in front of me.

I can move towards something else.

But the action is in this moment. 

Living this way is actually really simple, this is how you do it.

In this moment, act to the best of your ability to the circumstances in front of you.

That’s it.  Not as a burden, just because that is what life presented you.

You just deal with it, however it showed up.

When we do things that we don’t feel responsible for, we suffer. 

Not because the action itself is wrong, but because inwardly you’re resisting it. 

Suffering arises because you’re doing something you haven’t chosen.

Being responsible doesn’t mean doing everything. 

It means owning your experience of what is happening.

When you become responsible, you respond.

When you don’t, you react.

And reaction enslaves you to situations. 

Being responsible restores your ability to respond.

That’s freedom!

Let me ask you…

Is this your world? 

Or someone else's? 

Are you a part of it, or an imposter here?

If it's yours, it’s all yours.  

It’s all already happening, you are just participating consciously or not.

Notice how often we draw lines around responsibility — “I’m responsible for these people, these things, this much.” 

Then we have to constantly protect those boundaries. And protecting boundaries is tiring. 

It takes effort to defend where responsibility supposedly ends.

But when responsibility is total, something unexpected happens. 

You stop defending. 

You simply respond, moment by moment, to the best of your ability. 

Let yourself feel the expanse that comes when you let go of boundaries around responsibility.

Not everyone will feel it, but there is often a relaxing of your border — try it briefly.

Fulfillment comes not from how much you do, but from doing what you can. 

This may be uncomfortable to hear, but it matters: Limited responsibility is why terrible things happen in the world. 

Like war.

“I would never hurt my child — but someone else’s isn’t my responsibility.” 

The moment responsibility is divided, care becomes conditional, collective responsibility collapses, and harm becomes justifiable.

We don’t have to do this alone. Part of our responsibility is helping others become responsible too.

Life is this way whether you want it or not, resisting, this is what exhausts us.

Here’s the paradox: Life is both acceptance and being responsible simultaneously.

Acceptance that it is the way it is, while at the same time being responsible for it.

But this is important:

Responsibility and the act of being responsible is a completely different dimension of life.  

Being responsible is not a concept. It’s a way of being.

So be careful you don’t turn responsibility into a word you debate.

Argue with it in your head.

Discuss it out of context with anyone else.

It’s about how you show up, not what is demanded from you.

In the same way, holding someone else responsible often ends a relationship.

But when I’m responsible for how I show up in it, the atmosphere changes.  In that safety, collaboration becomes possible.

If we want to live on this planet, these are the people and the situations that are here - it's all about what we make of it.

No matter how much you want it to be different — this is where we are starting.

If I see my responsibility is limitless I move from limited … to unlimited, from being individual to … being universal.

From “me and mine” to life itself. 

Actions can still go wrong. Mistakes will still happen. 

But when responsibility is total, your intent is aligned with life, even when outcomes aren’t perfect.

If I sit with a limitless responsibility, I am acting with life. 

And this life will become spontaneous and beautiful - instead of me trying to make it predictable. 

Which is what we are doing.

Experiment, for a short period today, take it on and see your ability to be responsible is limitless — even though you can’t act on everything.  

Be responsible for everything; the water you drink, the words you say, the land you walk on, the food you put in your body, all of life around you. 

If we do this, in the wake we leave behind us, things align… 

Right now, for most of us, life is serving the mind — when in truth, the mind is meant to serve life. 

The mind is a fantastic instrument if it serves the process of life. 

When it’s not inline with the way life is, life then gets sacrificed to the mind’s limitations.

If you feel miserable when you're alone, then you must be in bad company.

When you’re unconscious, you get tangled up in life. 

When you’re conscious, clarity begins to appear. 

Once you become responsible what matters next is your intention and your attention.

Intention sets the direction — this is the direction I choose to move in life.

Attention keeps you aligned with it, not pulled away by the distractions or limitations of the mind.

Attention is a powerful force.

It’s like directing a focused beam into your life — whatever you place it on begins to organize itself around it.

So keep your attention present, in this moment, with what is actually happening.

From there, simply act in the most purifying and caring way possible.

When intention is clear and attention is steady, life responds — often more quickly and more profoundly than we expect.

What we have to offer is our effort — which is our life force, our willingness to contribute as we move through life.

So place your effort, moment by moment, toward the way you want to live — towards the person you want to be.

Then use it to amplify the direction as that flow begins.

We all came here with a sense of wonder. Somewhere along the way, that wonder stopped feeling like enough.

We began wondering about ourselves instead — measuring, improving, fixing — and quietly forgot what we came here to be a part of.

And yet…

You know there’s something profound to experience — even if you’ve learned to ignore it.

It’s always been there.

We just get muddled.

Our minds are messy.

We get tangled in them, when really, we’re meant to be having the time of our lives.

The chance to be part of this life is brief.

The invitation was never to prove how inventive you are, how much you can accumulate, or how impressive it looks from the outside.

The invitation is to notice what you’re already part of.

To appreciate it.

To share it.

To care for those around you, while still tending to your own path.

And when, moment by moment, you live as if your ability to respond is limitless, the boundaries you once lived inside of begin to dissolve - something opens.

You stop feeling separate from life and start participating in it fully.

To be a yes to life is not to lose yourself.

It’s to discover that your life is far bigger than your limitations.

If you live this way, you arrive at the end having lived a great life.

And then something quite radical becomes obvious: All possibilities exist.

The only thing that ever limited them was us.

Paul

P.S. If this topic (or any of my other letters) sparked a question, you can drop it here.  I read and answer them all.