Love More, Fear Less

What has the Sift & Shift life gotten me?

Let’s rewind. I’m living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have a ten-month old polishing the hardwood floors by crawling through his drool and a toddler orbiting my legs. I read a heartbreaking story of a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer and only a few months to live. She has an infant daughter. Each will be robbed of knowing the other.

The new mother can’t accept this. As her window on life is inching shut, she records herself discussing topics from relationships to college choice and more. She catalogs them, specifying at which age her daughter should view them.

This story moved me. And deeply troubled me. I could never do such a thing. I had nothing to say, no well of wisdom to tap, no revelatory life experience to impart.

Sifting and shifting led me to my voice. By not merely doing life, but thinking about it along the way, I slowly unearthed my me-ness in all of it and discovered how I am to live. Specifically, I realized that the best way to live boils down to four words. That’s it, four words.

Love more, fear less.

And when you consider that loving more includes oneself, I saw that everything the kind voice inside us draws us to, is either loving more or fearing less.

As I grow, constantly sifting and shifting to understand how, exactly, I am to love more and fear less, I settle peacefully into a better understanding of myself and the universe, myself in the universe. And although I’m not always comfortable with the challenges put before me (pushing oneself is hard!), my sense of purpose deepens and my satisfaction with life grows.

A reflective life will lead you to your voice, too. In a world where everyone’s selling you what to think, the destination of thought, Sift & Shift offers a path to figure it out for yourself.