Today

What are you going to do today?

You have a lot of freedom today. It's a whole day to do what you want. A whole day.

Okay, not exactly what you want. You probably are going to work for most of the day. And if not, you probably already have a schedule of things you have to do.

But let's say that there's even an hour or two of free time today.

We have an incredible amount of freedom. Sometimes we forget the freedom we get by having two working legs, or enough money to buy what we want for lunch. We can dance a jig right now and no one is stopping us.

We can change the world today. Or maybe not the whole world, but change someone's life. Or maybe not change it, but help it a little. Even if we drop a quarter on the ground to make someone happy who finds it, or compliment someone at work on the job they did. Or call a friend or relative just to say hi and tell them what they mean to you.

What will happen today? It might not be a significant day at all. Or it might be terrible. We can try to be safe.

Two weeks ago, this 28-year-old guy was playing basketball on one of the local courts, and he jumped up and then fell down in an odd way and hit the ground and died. He didn't have an aneurysm or heart attack, no one pushed him; he just had a very unusual injury. He probably got up that morning and didn't think it would be any sort of unusual day.

There are 21.5 hours left in this day, as I write this. Fewer for you, but there are still some.

Most days, I don't think about how much freedom I really have, all the things I could do. I go days and weeks without thinking about it, and I'm sure you do too.

Even if it's something as small as smiling at a co-worker when I come into the office today, I might just try to do it because I can. Not to sound like Suzy Sunshine, but the ability to do such things is a really great gift, isn't it? Almost as great as a whole day - and we get 365 of them this year!