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4000 weeks

4000 weeks.
 
That’s the average amount of weeks most of us have in a life.   
 
It’s such a startling small number. 
 
When we think in years, the length of each one can feel longer than we actually have.  The average age so distant from where we are now.  
 
As days, the time passes fast, with a large number that feels unrelatable.  
 
But as weeks – 4000 is a beautiful, small & timely number.
 
My question for you today, is how would you like to spend these 4000 weeks?

For me, I would like many of them to be in service to a more beautiful world. 
 
But I also want my experience of them to be pleasurable, meaningful, joyful – a lived experience with awe, wonder, ease (interspersed of course with the less pleasurable experiences, that offer wisdom none-the-less). 
 
Sometimes though, life & changemaking – whatever form we do – feels more like struggle.  In some contexts, the words are even synonymous.
 
For anyone in activism or change-work, the level of crises we face, the injustice that takes place, the inequity around us feels heavy
 
For every time we dream of something beautiful, we’ve surely experienced sadness, despair, anger, hopelessness at the world as it is. 
 
Plus – we all live in the world.  There’s jobs, bills, health issues, families – a million things demanding our attention.    
 
This feeling of struggle can be an easy one to spend our 4000 weeks in, dipping our toes in and out. 
 
There’s a beautiful Naropa University commencement speech from Brenda Salgado.  She suggests we are called at this time to release the word struggle from our attitude and vocabulary. 
 
It’s a bold statement, & it doesn’t pretend that there an’t challenges or hardships.   

But our attitude and our vocabulary can also have more power than we realise.  
 
What would it be like for you to release struggle from your attitude and vocabulary this week? 

To face your challenges with an attitude of ease or trust? 
 
And what you like to experience with what remains of your 4000 weeks?

Love & courage,

Laura

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