Another morning alive. Holy shit. Can you believe it? If you add up all the days of your life, you should be amazed. Right? If I add up 58 years plus another month and a half I get—wait let me check:

21,170 plus another 44 days=

21,214 days alive on planet Earth.

That should be some kind of accomplishment, right?

I’m going to keep that number in my head for the rest of this day.

Remember how many days you’ve been alive so far.

Then decide if those days were spent in joy, peace, harmony, gratitude, FUN, abandon, reckless behavior that was not hurting anyone, just a good full damn near perfect day.

How many?

I can’t really say I’ve had full days like that. But I’ve had moments. Do those moments spent squeezing out the glorious juice of being alive outweigh the moments spent cowering in fear over some imagined future. Spent in worry? Spent in shame? Spent in regret?

Getting deep this morning. Someone my wife and I knew, someone who couldn’t have been more than 45 years old, died. Got Covid on a trip to England and then it spread to some form of septic shock thing and his wife and family spent 11 days in the hospital before he passed.

Husband. Father of two.

A beautiful man.

I only met him a few times. But I’ve seen photos on Facebook now. Light in his eyes. A good soul.

Dead. Way too early.

It’s hard to stay funny and positive when shitty things happen to good people.

And then you see so many bozos and buffoons living long happy lives. Or at least the lives look happy. Who knows what kind of demons are tormenting these buffoons—these people spreading disharmony, disinformation, crooks, mean people, people who harm others and have no regard for the sanctity of life…

Well, well, this morning’s got me by the bull of the horn of heaviness, don’t it?

On a lighter note…

I will start counting my total days alive on this beautiful planet of ours. One that’s sustained me (and all of us) for roughly 21,214 days so far.

I have to give it props. It’s provided air, water, sun, food, fun, music, love, tenderness, laughter, pleasure, books, bon bons and bad TV that feels so good to watch…a damn fine furry black cat now sitting behind me waiting to play, my family, my wife, my amazing wife—whom I’ve been with for over 32 years…what a blessing.

I’m writing my own life’s gratitude list right now. Why don’t you do the same?

I can complain and complain but sometimes it’s good to take inventory of the blessings in your world.

Full disclosure: I was born less than 3 pounds. I was in the “preemie” ward as they called it back in the “day.” 1964. I was put in an incubator to keep me alive. I was so small my mom said I looked like a wrinkled Cornish game hen. She used to laugh when she told me that. I didn’t laugh. I just imagined myself on a plate with a side of potatoes.

Not funny.

But being so small and having a hard time being alive for the first few months should make me even more grateful for being alive for over 21,000 days so far.

I want the next 21,000 (or some reasonable fraction of that) to be “off the chains” as they say.

A full-on blasted celebration of being alive.

Laughing more.

Dancing more.

Singing more.

Eating more chocolate cake.

Petting my cat more.

Loving my wife even harder and deeper. Wishing her another 50,000 days.

Looking at my daughter and praying she, too, has a 100,000 days.

And there you have it.

A little introspective meditation on our life on earth.

What if you looked back over your life and said you had chocolate cake every day for breakfast for those 21,000 days?

What if you looked back and said you had over 21,000 Grade “A” magnificent days.

Days that rang bells in the wide blue sky.

Days full of melody and song.

Days no one would ever regret to have lived…

How would you feel?