Think about what the people who loved you most wanted for you when you were small. Security. Comfort. Enough. More than enough. Think about how many of those prayers were answered, and what answering them actually cost.
I don't say this to be ungrateful for any of it. I say it because I think we owe it to the people who loved us to eventually outgrow what they wished for us — not in contempt, but in completion.
The wishes of people who love us are shaped by their fears, not our potential. To live only inside those wishes is a kind of prolonged childhood.
I've caught myself praying small prayers. Not to any god in particular — just the low hum of wanting things to be easier, safer, more certain. And I notice that when those prayers get answered, I don't feel enlarged. I feel quieter in a way that isn't peace.
Nature doesn't actually ask much of us. What asks everything is the machinery we've built around want — the needing more, the not-enough that follows every arrival. A body fed is a simple thing. It's the appetite that has no stomach, the craving that can't locate what it's actually craving, that hollows a life out.
Here's Seneca's hardest line, and I keep returning to it: he really lives who is made use of by many. Not performs for many. Not is seen by many. Made use of — meaning something actually passes through you into the world.
The opposite of that isn't rest. It's disappearing while still breathing.
I want more for you than comfort. I want more for myself. I think that's the most honest prayer I know how to make.
With love that wants more than safety for you —