DARKNESS

Hey, it's Jay. I don't know what your day's been like, but I was just thinking about you for a minute. And I hope you're being a little patient with yourself because you deserve it. And yeah, I'll talk to you soon. [Music] If you were listening to this, I'm guessing it's late. The room's dark, the lights are rough. Maybe you've already rolled over a few times, adjusting your pillow, turning from one side to the other, searching for that perfect position where sleep finally arrives. Maybe you've checked the time more than once and started doing the math in your head. If I fall asleep now, I'll still get six hours. Now five, now four. Or maybe sleep isn't even the problem. Maybe your body's exhausted. Your eyes are heavy, you know you're tired. At the moment your head touched the pillow, your mind decided it was time to get back to work. It started replaying conversations from today. It reminded you of everything you didn't finish. It began rehearsing tomorrow before tomorrow has even had a chance to begin. Strange isn't it? All day long, life is noisy. There are emails to answer, people to respond to, places to be, notifications to clear, and a hundred different things competing for your attention. Then the moment the world finally becomes quiet, your mind suddenly gets louder. Maybe you're spiraling about the day. Maybe you're worrying about tomorrow. Maybe you just can't seem to get out of your own mind. Whatever brought you here tonight, I just want you to know something before we go any further. Nothing is wrong with how you're feeling at this moment. What you're experiencing is one of the most human things in the world. The problem is that your brain doesn't always know the difference between a thought and a threat. It doesn't know that tomorrow's presentation hasn't started yet. It doesn't know that the mistake you made this afternoon is already over. It simply senses uncertainty and says, "Stay awake a little longer. Keep thinking. Maybe there's something we're missing." But have you ever noticed that your clearest thoughts rarely arrive while you're forcing them? They don't usually appear while you're staring at the ceiling trying to solve your life. They show up in the shower halfway through a walk while you're washing the dishes, driving with the radio on, or sometimes they simply greet you the next morning after you finally stop chasing them. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think clarity needs space to breathe and to grow. And I think one of the great misconceptions we've been taught is that if we just think hard enough, long enough, we'll eventually think our way into peace. But peace doesn't actually come from thinking more. It comes from carrying less. Your brain has already worked incredibly hard today, whether you know to stay or not. It has made thousands of decisions today. It is tired. And yet because it loves you and because it's job is to keep you safe, it believes the most responsible thing it can do is stay awake just a little longer. So tonight I'd like to offer you a different possibility. What if you didn't have to solve your life before you fell asleep? What if nothing important had to be figured out in the next 10 minutes? Because here's what I've learned. Tomorrow isn't asking you to have all the answers. Tomorrow is simply asking you to arrive. And I think that's a much gentler place for us to begin. So now take one slow breath. Breathe in and out. Of course breathing doesn't magically fix everything, but it is one of the few ways you can remind your body that in this moment you are safe. Your heart has been beating all day without you asking it to. Your lungs have been filling and emptying with every breath. Your body has quietly carried you through another day and maybe tonight before you ask anything more of it, you simply thank it. As you breathe out, imagine setting today down. Not pretending it didn't happen, just setting it beside the bed for a little while. The email can stay there. The difficult conversation can stay there. The decision you haven't made yet can stay there. Tomorrow morning if you still need them, they'll be waiting for you. But for the next little while, you don't have to hold them in your body. The past doesn't change because we've revisited. Only we do. So before we go any further tonight, can I ask you a question? What are you still carrying? Don't answer it with your mind. Just notice what came up in your body. Maybe it's pressure, maybe it's disappointment, maybe it's grief, maybe it's fear that you're running out of time. Maybe it's simply the feeling that no matter how hard you're trying, it never quite feels like enough. Whatever it is, notice that you've been carrying it. Not so you can criticize yourself for holding on too long, but so you can finally see the weight. This episode of on purpose is presented by ultra running. We all benefit from having a little more space so do our feet. That's why ultra running shoes feature ultra fit design, giving toes more room for comfort, balance and strength. They're perfect for running, walking or hiking, any pace, any level, they feel right from the first step. Go to ultra running.com/onpurpose and use code purpose 10 for 10% off. That's AL-TRA running.com/onpurpose. Stay out there. It's very difficult to put something down if you don't realise you've been holding it. And truly the most loving thing you can do at the end of a long day is admit that something has been heavier than you wanted anyone to know. So now take another deep breath. Relax your jaw. Release any tension you're holding in your shoulders. Lay back. Close your eyes. I want to tell you a story. It's a very old one and whenever life feels uncertain, this is the story I come back to. I want you to imagine a person who wakes long before sunrise. The world is still quiet. The sky is a deep shade of blue. Their home is small and the wooden floor creaks beneath their feet as they get dressed in the dark so they don't wake the rest of their family. They splash cold water on their face, pull on the same warm boots they've worn for years, pick up a weathered hammer, and quietly step outside into the cold morning air. Their breath hangs in front of them as they begin the long walk toward the mountain. It is a path they know so well they could do it without looking. Every bend in the trail is familiar. Every tree every patch of earth. Every loose stone beneath their feet has become part of a routine. They have repeated hundreds of times before. Birds slowly begin to wake around them as darkness gives way to morning. But they aren't looking at the sunrise. Their eyes are fixed on where they're going because waiting for them exactly where they left it yesterday is their stone. It is enormous taller than they are, wider than their outstretched arms. Its surface is rough and scarred from years of wind and rain. And standing before it, it's difficult to imagine that one person carrying a single hammer could ever hope to change it. If you saw it for the first time, you would probably think the same thing. This is an impossible task. But every morning they pick up the hammer anyway. They plant their feet firmly in the dirt. They wrap both hands around the worn wooden handle. They take a deep breath, lift it high above their shoulder and bring it down with all the strength they have. The sound brings through the valley echoing off the mountain side before disappearing into the morning air. Then they do it again and again and again. By midday their shoulders ache, their hands are blistered beneath their gloves. Sweat runs down their forehead. Their arms feel heavy. They pause for a drink of water, wipe their brow with their sleeve and look up at the stone. It looks exactly the same. No visible crack, no fracture, no that anything has changed at all, just the same enormous rock staring back at them as if every swing of the hammer had meant absolutely nothing. Imagine walking past that mountain that afternoon. What would you think if you saw them there? You might feel sorry for them. You might wonder why they keep coming back every day to do work that seems to have no effect whatsoever. You might even think they're wasting their life, pouring all of their energy into something that refuses to move. But the next morning before the sun rises, they come back. Some mornings they arrive hopeful. Other mornings they wonder if everyone else has been right all along. Maybe today is the day they finally admit defeat. Maybe today is the day they accept that some things simply can't be changed. Yet still they wrapped their hands around the hammer once more. Take a breath and swing. At the end of each day they walk home slowly. Their hands are raking, just clings to their clothes and gathers in the lines of their face. Someone asked them, "Did it break today?" And all they can do is shake their head and say, "Not today." There must have been evenings when those words felt heavy, but still the next morning they return. Days become weeks, weeks become months. The mountain watches in silence as the seasons slowly change around them. Summer gives way to autumn, leaves fall to the ground, winter arrives. Frost settles over the trail they walk every morning. Spring follows and the birds return. Through it all one sound continues to echo across the valley every single day. The steady rhythm of a person striking a stone that to everyone watching appears completely unchanged. And then one morning one that looks no different from any of the others, they lift the hammer one more time. The sky is still pale, the valley is quiet. The stone stands before them the same way it always has. They plant their feet, breathe in, and out. Raise the hammer and swing. The stone splits clean into. A single crack runs through the center until the rock finally falls apart. Inside there are countless precious gemstones. The person drops the hammer, falling to their knees. The mountain is silent again, but everything is changed. Here's why I wanted to share that old story. Think about if you had just seen that person on that final day. Most people would point to that final swing and say, "Wow, all it took was one swing to break that stone." Maybe some would say it isn't fair. Some would say he didn't earn it. But anyone who had truly watched the person would know that it isn't true. The stone didn't break because of one strike. It broke because of every strike. Every morning they showed up when it seemed pointless. Every afternoon they left without visible proof that they'd accomplished anything. Every evening they walked home carrying sore muscles and tired hands, believing that something was changing even when their eyes couldn't see it yet. And I wonder if you've been looking at your own life, the way a stranger might have looked at that person on the mountain. Maybe you've convinced yourself that nothing is changing because you can't yet see the tiny fractures forming beneath the surface. Maybe you've been trying to heal, trying to become more patient, learning to forgive, learning to speak more honestly, learning to love yourself a little more. And because the changes have been so gradual, you've overlooked them completely. You stay consumed with how far you have to go, not knowing how close the new beginning may truly be. True healing has never been loud. With rarely announces itself. The most meaningful changes in your life almost always begin long before they're visible. Maybe tonight you're standing on swing number 247. Ready to quit because the stone still looks exactly the same. But what if you stopped measuring your life only by what you can see today and started making room for the possibility that something is already changing underneath. The story reminds me how little of life we're actually able to see while we're living it. We lay exactly where we are tonight and decide we've seen enough to know how the story ends. We convince ourselves we've already gathered all the evidence to prove our anxieties right. We look at one difficult season and conclude, I guess this is just my life now. We mistake where we are for where we're going simply because we can't yet see beyond the bend in the road. Can I ask you something? I imagine most of it would have surprised you. There are people in your life today whose names you didn't even know 10 years ago. There are places you've been that your younger self had never heard of. There are memories that mean everything to you now that hadn't happened yet. At one point your favorite restaurant was just another building you'd never walked into. Your favorite song hadn't reached your ears. The people you now love most deeply were still strangers living completely separate lives. You didn't know any of it was coming. Not because you weren't working toward it but because life simply hadn't reached it yet. I think that's easy to forget when we're lying awake at night. Our minds become so convinced that because we can't picture something beautiful ahead of us it must not exist, that the worst case scenario is inevitable. But your own life tells a completely different story. Again and again the moments that shaped you arrived unannounced. They weren't on your calendar. They weren't part of your five year plan. They didn't ask for permission before changing your life. So just for a moment I'd like you to picture the world outside your room tonight. Isn't there peace in knowing that right now there is a world carrying on as you're able to rest? A world that is preparing itself for you but only for when the time is right. Somewhere a baker is sliding the first loaves of bread into another before the sun has risen. Somewhere a nurse is finishing the last hour of a long shift. Somewhere someone is boarding a plane that will take them to the city where they'll meet the love of their life. Somewhere a little girl is opening a book that will inspire the career she'll have 20 years from now. Somewhere two strangers are sitting beside each other at a late night dinner. Completely unaware that this ordinary conversation will become the beginning of a lifelong friendship. None of those people know what story they're inside. They're simply living it and maybe that's one of the most beautiful things about being human. Life is constantly introducing people to futures they never could have imagined. Somewhere tonight someone who will one day become incredibly important to you is finishing dinner, folding laundry, laughing with friends or lying awake just like you are now. They don't know your name, they couldn't pick you out of a crowd, they have no idea that one day you'll become part of each other's lives just as you have no idea who they are tonight. I find that strangely comforting. It reminds me that the future is far more creative than my imagination has ever been. Maybe that's why your mind gets tired. It keeps trying to solve tomorrow before tomorrow has had the chance to introduce itself but tomorrow is never asked you to predict it. It is only ever asked you to be present within it and maybe just maybe that's enough for tonight. Close your eyes for a moment, take another deep breath. I want you to picture waking up more hopeful tomorrow. Let's visualize the morning, not tomorrow afternoon, not next month, not five Have you ever heard of any of these videos from now? Just tomorrow morning. Imagine the first few moments before you remember your schedule, your responsibilities, or the list waiting for you on your phone. For those few quiet seconds between sleeping and waking, you'll simply be another person lying peacefully beneath the blanket while the world slowly stretches awake around you. Somewhere outside your window, the morning will already be beginning. A delivery truck will make its first stop of the day. Someone will unlock the front door of a neighborhood coffee shop before the first customer arrives. Birds will begin talking to one another. Someone will be walking their dog down the street. The beautiful thing about tomorrow is that none of those moments need your permission to happen. The morning doesn't depend on you, figuring everything out. The sun doesn't ask whether you've answered every question before it rises. The world has never expected certainty from you. It simply keeps inviting you back into it, one ordinary day at a time. It's so simple, yet I think that's something we've forgotten. That's why I don't want you to spend tonight trying to write tomorrow's story before you've even opened the first page. Your imagination is incredibly powerful, but it is one fascinating blind spot. It's remarkably good at inventing problems that never arrive, yet almost completely incapable of inventing the beautiful surprises that eventually do. Think about that for a second. Your imagination never predicted the exact joke that would leave you laughing until your stomach hurt. It never predicted the stranger who would become family. It never predicted the place that would one day feel like home. It never predicted the ordinary afternoon that would quietly become one of your favorite memories years later. Somehow, the very best parts of your life have always managed to arrive without asking your imagination for permission first. Somewhere tonight a table is being set at a restaurant where one day you celebrate something you've worked incredibly hard for. Somewhere a bookstore is holding a book with a sentence you'll underline because it finds you at exactly the right moment. Somewhere someone is learning new information that could turn into advice you'll need from them years later. Every once in a while I like to remember how many moments like that are already making their way toward me. Not because the universe owes us anything. Not because everything always works out the way we hope it will. Simply because our own lives have already shown us, over and over again, that the good we can't imagine always outweighs the fears we're spiraling about. Every beautiful chapter you've lived arrived as an unknown future first. In fact the best day of your life so far might have happened after a night when you were played with anxiety. So tonight instead of running through all the fear of what tomorrow could bring, all the ways you'll be challenged, ask yourself instead, what beautiful moment hasn't found me yet. Sit with that for a second, visualize maybe for the first time all the good that tomorrow could bring. Take a deep breath in. Take a deep breath out. Notice anywhere in your body where you're holding tension and let it just relax down into your bed. There is no way for you to be. There's nothing for you to do. All you need to do in this moment is to be still. Now, notice that nothing has changed about the room around you. The ceiling is still above you. The blanket still rests across your body. The air still moves quietly through the room. And yet maybe, just maybe, something has changed inside you. At least for a little while you've stopped trying to solve all the problems tomorrow may or may not bring. You've simply allowed yourself to be here. We spend so much of our lives believing that peace is something we have to earn. We tell ourselves we'll finally relax after we finish the project, after we find the relationship, after we make enough money, after we figure out what comes next. This becomes another destination sitting somewhere beyond the horizon, always waiting for one more accomplishment before it finally agrees to meet us. But I don't think peace works that way. I think peace has been always waiting in moments like this all along. It waits in the first deep breath after a long cry. It waits in the silence that follows a good conversation. It waits in the walk home after the rain has stopped. It waits in the few gentle moments before sleep when the world isn't asking anything from you except your willingness to let this day come to an end. Tomorrow will ask things of you. But tonight has a different purpose. Tonight is for remembering that you don't have to carry an entire lifetime before you fall asleep. You only have to carry this breath. And the next one and the one after that. And while you're sleeping, the world will keep spinning. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Somewhere waves will keep meeting the shore. Somewhere a seed beneath the ground will continue becoming a flower. Somewhere a spider will patiently rebuild its web. The world won't stop because you've allowed yourself to rest. There is something deeply comforting about knowing that your heart doesn't need to be reminded to beat while you sleep. Even your mind, the same mind that has kept your weight tonight, knows how to sort, file, restore, and repair while you've rest. Some of the questions you've been wrestling with won't be answered because you stayed awake another hour. They'll become clearer because you've finally allowed yourself to file them away. So if your thoughts begin wandering again after this episode ends, don't fight them. Just smile at your brain the way you might smile at a child who's trying very hard to help. But doesn't your understand that everything is okay? Thank your mind for doing its job. If you get for trying to protect you, then gently remind it that it doesn't have to stand guard all night long. Morning has always found you before. Every difficult day you've ever lived through eventually became a yesterday. Every season of your life no matter how permanent it felt while you were inside it, eventually made room for another one. Life has never asked you to see the entire path. Maybe that's why I find so much comfort in the unknown now. The unknown doesn't guarantee happiness. It never will. The unknown holds heartbreak and disappointment just as surely as it holds joy and love. But it also holds every single beautiful experience waiting ahead. You don't have to read the whole book tonight. You don't have to skip ahead looking for reassurance that everything works out in the end. You can simply trust that tomorrow will reveal itself the same way every meaningful chapter of your life always has. One page at a time. So let your shoulders soften. Let your jaw unclench. Let the weight of the day sink into the mattress instead of staying inside your body. Let your thoughts drift past like clouds that don't need to be chased or held onto. The night knows what to do. Your body knows what to do. And somewhere beneath all the noise, I think a quiet part of you has known all along too. Sleep if sleep finds you. Or just rest if rest is all that comes. Either way the morning will meet you exactly where you need to be. All you have to do is meet the day when it comes. this time maybe you meet it with a bit more. more hope. Because this time, maybe you remember every beautiful chapter of your life, was once just a future you couldn't even imagine.