The Impact of One Post by One Man: Oren Miller
Oren Miller was a writer, a husband, a father – a stay-at-home dad, in fact. He wasn’t a ‘famous’ person or writer, but he wrote one post several months ago which changed tens of thousands of people before he died last Saturday.
The post he wrote was oringially inspired by a moment of angst when he wasn’t feeling like he was enough. He was on vacation with his family in 2010 at Bethany Beach:
“…everyone was having a great time. Our family and some friends were building sand castles, going in and out of the water, and just relaxing in general–everyone except anxious old me. I had hundreds of unread emails and dozens of ideas for blog posts I didn’t have time to write, and I was surrounded by too much sand and not enough coffee…”
When he realized he wasn’t living his life in that one, beautiful moment – but instead, inside of his head – he changed. In 2014, four years later, he was given a fatal diagnosis, stage 4 lung cancer. From then, he inspired thousands to understand what’s really important in this life – their lives – until his own life ended.
Another writer, Lauren Cormier, sat in her car on Sunday and re-read his words. And in reading Oren’s words, she absorbed Oren’s gift to the world. She opened her own eyes to the beautiful life around her, just as Oren so passionately inspired us all to do.
All we ever want is to be seen. All we ever want to know is if we are enough. Oren’s gift to us was a reminder, that even faced with your own imminent mortality, you can still have and be enough. And all you have to do is pay attention – grand attention to the life that is already before you. If you do, you will have awe-inspiring gratitude and appreciation for the love and beauty which surrounds you each day, every day.
Instead, we fixate on the messy parts. We live in our heads checking off our to-do lists and planning for the next day while not even living the one we’re in because, oh no, today is such a mess… again. We convince ourselves by some faulty wiring that if only we work hard enough, plan diligiently enough, tomorrow will be better.
Do not hate the mess. Do not admoninish and hide your failings from today while living only inside your plans for tomorrow. Oren, although not here to say it, would say: Live Right Now. Where you are. In this moment. In YOUR life, With the similarly messed up cast of characters who you call family, friends and neighbors. Lift your head up, and out of your phone, as Lauren did, and love the ones you’re with right now.
Each of us are enough, and each of us have gifts to offer this world, just like Oren did in his final days to me, to Lauren, and to thousands of you. And those gifts have the power to transform not only yourself, but the world.
You don’t have to be famous. In fact, like Oren, you could learn you’re going to die within a year. But you can still live your life today as though, as Oren put it, you’re “the luckiest sonofabitch who ever walked the earth.”
Shannon Lell is the editor of Mamapedia. You can read more on her blog at shannonlell.com or follow her on Facebook and Twitter @shannonlell.
