Goood morning and welcome to Letters from Emery—a daily shot of perspective written to wake up a more fulfilled and empowered you.

Shot of the day:

On average we will spend 1/3 of our entire lives working.

Yep, that’s around 33 years full of actual working hours (give or take of course).

First of all, I’m not saying that’s bad.

Second of all, I’m not defining “work” as strictly paid labor. But for sake of brevity, let’s assume “work” is something like: time spent fulfilling a role.

Right, so we need to work, and for a plethora of reasons:

To provide for ourselves & others, to fulfill our basic needs, to fund our way of life, to be of use & service to the world, to experience a sense of purpose while we’re here…

(Not to mention we’d all lose our minds without something productive to do, it’s absolutely vital for putting pleasure in check, and it’s the very thing that essentially all value is built upon)

So, there’s no getting rid of work.

Why it’s important to put time spent working into perspective however is this:

If we’re going to spend 1/3 of our lives doing something, we should at least aim to enjoy, if not at least find some level of satisfaction (and maybe even fulfillment) in the time spent doing it.

Yeah, that may be easier said than done.

You more-than-likely won’t spend every second of it—heart ablaze, tears rolling down your cheeks in pride & joy, exploding in extacy, etc.

But you’re going to have to spend it somehow…

Meaning, you could either:

Spend the vast majority of it in a soul-sucking state of distain, anxiety, malace, and resentment—leading of course to a very high probability of low self-esteem, low-quality opportunities, low-quality relationships, and an inevitably endless serving of low-quality days…

Or:

You could spend (or try to spend) at least a healthy portion in a state of gratitude for what you have (and can afford), excitement for the challenge ahead, and pride for what you bring to the table.

Which will undoubtedly lead to… well, a hell of a lot better story than the one that starts with “soul-sucking”.

AND wanna know the beauty of it all?

Even though it’s 33 years across a lifetime, it’s alllll still made up of the same seconds, minutes, and hours that make up a day.

So if you can find a way (what way is up to you) to make just one day at a time a day you can be truly proud of…

Then, congrats—you’ve also found your way to living a damn good 33 years of life, of which you can also be truly proud of.

I’ll leave you with this…

How you spend a moment is how you’ll spend a day.

How you spend a day is how you’ll spend a week.

How you spend a week is how you’ll spend a month.

How you spend a month is how you’ll spend a year.

How you spend a year is how you’ll spend a life.

Wishing you all, sincerely, the best day ever (and a lifetime more to come),

-Emery

P.S. A question for your pocket: What could I do today to make it a great one? And if I had a week full of those? A month? A year?

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