The Boxes of Our Lives
I just celebrated my 62nd birthday on Saturday September 5th in beautiful Montana with my amazing wife and some good friends.
First off, thank you to the hundreds of friends, family members, acquaintances, and new connections who took a moment to wish me a happy birthday! I read them all, truly appreciated them, and perhaps because of where I am in life today, they all caused me to reflect a little more deeply than usual on what another birthday really means.
In Modern Man’s Search for Meaning, I describe life as a collection of boxes.
Imagine that on the day you are born, you are handed an empty box. For the next 365 days, you fill it with experiences, memories, relationships, accomplishments, mistakes, laughter, heartbreak, victories, failures, people you loved, people you lost, things you did for others, and things you wish you could do over.
Then your next birthday arrives.
The box is closed, taped shut, labeled with a number, and placed into the warehouse of your life.
Another empty box is handed to you.
And you start again.
Box 61:
This weekend, I taped up Box 61.
When I look inside before closing it, I'm proud of much of what I see.
It's filled with new realizations about life, love, faith, purpose, and meaning. It contains a deepened relationship with my wife, my children, my family, and God.
There are two published books in that box, and the beginning of a third.
There is also a new platform centered around addiction, recovery, purpose, meaning, transformation, and legacy. There's a new website, thousands of new social-media connections, some podcasts, presentations, new friendships, and opportunities to learn from others as well as to share what I've learned myself.
Most importantly, Box 61 contains another year of sobriety.
That's particularly meaningful because some of my earlier boxes contain the wreckage of relapses.
So yes, Box 61 is a good box.
But it isn't a perfect box.
None of them are.
Some Boxes Are Heavy:
When I look around my warehouse, there are boxes I remember very differently.
Some contain career accomplishments, great family memories, friendships, celebrations, adventures, births, laughter, love, and moments I wish I could experience all over again.
Others are considerably heavier and darker.
They contain addiction, divorce, broken relationships, lost jobs, financial struggles, disappointment, humiliation, people I hurt, people who hurt me, opportunities squandered, words I wish I hadn't said, and decisions I wish I could make again.
Most boxes contain both. That's just life.
We tend to remember years as either “good years” or “bad years,” but perhaps that's too simplistic. Even some of our darkest boxes contain gifts we didn’t recognize when we were packing them.
There may be some wisdom buried beneath the regret.
Humility underneath the failure.
Compassion underneath the suffering.
Strength underneath the adversity.
Purpose underneath the pain.
Some of the box experiences I once would have gladly removed from my warehouse have become the very experiences that today allow me to help others.
I've come to believe that God doesn't waste the contents of our worst boxes, and neither should we. He uses them, and us, to fulfill a unique purpose He has designed for each of our lives.
The Boxes We Refuse to Close:
There's another kind of box in our warehouse.
The one we never taped shut.
We keep pulling it down from the shelf, opening it, rummaging through it, and examining its contents again and again.
The relationship that failed.
The person who hurt us. The person we hurt.
The mistake we can't forgive ourselves for.
The career that didn't turn out as planned.
The money we lost.
The opportunity we missed or squandered.
The addiction.
The betrayal.
The resentment.
The regret, remorse, and shame.
Some of us are still trying to rearrange the contents of a box that was packed twenty years ago.
But we can't.
The past can teach us. It can humble us. It can shape us. We can make amends for it. We can learn from it and use it to serve some other purpose.
But we cannot change it.
At some point, we must tape the box shut.
Put it on the shelf.
And stop paying rent on storage space for something that no longer belongs in the present.
We don't have to throw those boxes away. They are all a part of our story.
But they don't have to take up space in our minds every day.
“Your past deserves a place in your story. It doesn't deserve control of your present.”
How Big Is Your Warehouse?
Here's the sobering part.
Most of us unconsciously live as though our warehouse has room for 100 boxes.
I'll turn 70 someday.
Then 80.
Maybe 90.
Maybe even 100.
We talk and think about those birthdays as though they've already been reserved for us.
They haven't.
Statistically, an American man can look at average life expectancy and make an educated guess about how many boxes he might have left.
But averages don't apply to individuals.
At 62, perhaps the averages say I have another 15 years.
Maybe I get lucky and have 25. Maybe 5. Maybe 1.
Or maybe this is my last September. Maybe I don't get another box.
No one knows how much storage space remains in their warehouse.
I don’t say that to be morbid or depressing, but rather because I find it weirdly liberating!
Because once we accept that the supply of boxes is finite, we become much more intentional about what we put into the one we're holding this year, this month, this week, this day, and this moment.
Don't Live in Next Years Boxes Either:
Sometimes we spend too much time regretting yesterday's boxes that we miss today, but we can also spend too much time planning for future boxes that may or may not come, and we end up doing the same thing, missing today. We say things like:
I'll be happy when I retire.
When I make more money.
When the kids are grown or gone.
When I find the right relationship.
When I get the promotion.
When the house is paid off.
When things settle down.
When I finally discover my purpose.
We're mentally packing boxes we haven't even been given yet.
Planning matters. Goals matter. Dreams matter. Purpose matters.
But life can only be lived in the box that is open today.
Yesterday's box was taped shut. Tomorrows hasn't been delivered.
This year’s box is sitting in front of you. It’s truly all you have.
Box 62:
So now I begin Box 62.
It's almost completely empty.
That's exciting and a little daunting.
I have some ideas about what I'd like to put into it.
More sobriety.
More time with people I love.
More writing.
More speaking.
More opportunities to help people.
More faith.
More purpose.
More laughter.
More gratitude.
Fewer resentments.
Less concern about things that don't really matter.
More attention to things that do.
But I also know something today that I didn't understand when I was filling most of my earlier boxes:
I don't control everything that will go into Box 62.
There will be surprises. Probably disappointments. There may be loss. There will be mistakes.
And that's okay.
My responsibility isn't to control everything that enters the box.
My responsibility is to decide what I do with it.
And perhaps that's one of the greatest lessons in life about acceptance and peace.
We don't get to choose every experience we're handed, but we do get to choose what those experiences produce in us, how we respond to them, and what we do with them afterward.
So, as I begin my 62nd box, I'm grateful.
Grateful for the good boxes.
Grateful for what the painful boxes have taught me.
Grateful for all the people who have been somewhere inside my other 61 boxes.
Grateful that God gave me a 62nd box.
And determined not to waste it.
Here is what each of us should be asking ourselves today:
Which boxes are you focusing on? One’s that should be taped shut and stored away, ones you haven’t yet been given, or the open box in front of you just waiting for you to fill it with treasures?
What are you putting into that box?
Which old box or boxes do you need to finally tape shut?
And most importantly:
Since none of us knows how many empty boxes will be delivered to us in the future, what are we all waiting for?
Don't waste another box.
Happy Labor Day!
Mike