Why life itself is the most astonishing gift
A Love Affair with Existence
The poet Mary Oliver once wrote: “All of my life, I was a bride married to amazement.”
That line has always struck me as a blueprint for living. Imagine carrying such an orientation—not to possessions, not to achievements, not even to other people first—but to existence itself.
For as long as I can remember, that’s how I’ve felt about life. Not always in the form of bliss or ease, but as a steady undercurrent of awe. Awe at the sunrise over a mountain ridge, at the fact that I get to love and be loved, at the sheer strangeness of being conscious for a while in a universe of mostly unconscious matter.
Life, I’ve come to believe, is not just to be lived. It is to be savored.
The Treasure in Front of Us
Edwin Markham noted: “The thing that is incredible is life itself. Why should we be here in this sun-illuminated universe? Why should there be green earth under our feet?”
It’s easy to let questions like that slip past us. Bills are due. The inbox overflows. We get caught up in anxieties about status, success, and expectations. But once in a while, wonder elbows its way through the noise. The sudden pull to run across an open field, the laugh that bubbles up unexpectedly, the moment when beauty blindsides you and you have to pause.
Those flashes aren’t trivial. They’re evidence. They remind us that life is fundamentally good—not because it’s easy, but because we got to have it at all.
Too often, we fall asleep to that reality. We become, as I once wrote, the “living dead”: technically breathing, but numb to the miracle of existence. Life Savor—the philosophy I’ve tried to shape into words—is about waking up again. It’s about remembering the treasure before us while we still have the chance to consciously love it and live it.
More Than Survival
Other animals live, but they don’t pause to reflect on living. They act, they adapt, they pass on genes. Humans, though—we have the peculiar gift of standing outside our experience and appreciating it.
That’s why I see our greatest triumph not as our survival, but as our capacity to savor survival. We don’t just eat—we taste. We don’t just see—we marvel. We don’t just live—we can be grateful for living.
That aesthetic dimension—the ability to notice, to savor, to be moved—isn’t optional fluff. It’s the deepest reward life offers. It’s what turns existence into meaning.
Dawn at Dusk
I once wrote: “Life Savor attempts to provide a feeling of dawn, even at our dusk.”
What I meant is this: even in our hardest seasons, even in the knowledge that our lives will end, there is a way to orient ourselves toward the light. Gratitude doesn’t deny difficulty. It frames it. It reminds us that, while pain is real, so is the gift of ever having had the chance to feel at all.
When we look at our lives from the vantage point of mortality, every ordinary day glows differently. Each moment feels like dawn breaking—bright, unearned, and fleeting. Life, then, is never tragedy; only triumph.
A Mission, Not Just a Mood
Gratitude for life is more than a mood to chase when things are going well. It’s a practice. It’s a mission. It’s a way of viewing life.
For me, that mission has been lifelong. As a child, I wanted to put into words the sense of awe I felt for existence, lest it slip away unnoticed. As an adult, I’ve tried to make that perspective more explicit—not only for myself but for others, especially those who might be tempted to give up on life too soon.
Because here’s the truth: we’re all going to die. That’s a fact. But before we do, we get to live. And the only way to honor that gift is to live it fully, with as much gratitude and savor as we can muster. Then it is victory, no matter what.
Falling Awake
Ultimately, the point of Life Savor is simple: to help us “fall awake.”
Falling awake means not drifting through our days numb or anesthetized by routine. It means tasting, noticing, appreciating. It means treating life not as a burden we must shoulder, but as a banquet we get to attend. An adventure we’re privileged to explore.
And it means asking the most important question of all: Was our life a work of art to us?
Did we notice the evening skies and breezes? Did we love? Did we care? Did we savor?
If so, then no matter the hardships, we will have done justice to our astonishing gift.
A Question for You
Where in your life have you been falling asleep—moving through the days without tasting them?
And what’s one way, today, you could fall awake again?
Because this is it: your one-and-only chance to be alive. Don’t let it slip by unnoticed or unlived.
