freedom.

I can't believe it's already July. Where does the time go? 

Do you ever feel like the days and years are passing so quickly you just want to stop time for a bit. Just to savor the sweet place you are in your life? Maybe you're in a new relationship, and you don't want to forget that feeling. Maybe you have little kiddos, and your heart aches when you think about the day they are too old to fall asleep on your chest. Or maybe you're single, and you are really embracing the opportunities that come with that... the spontaneity you are able to have, the people you are able to meet.

I am in the latter stage of life. Most of my friends back home in Texas are married, some with a kid already, some with two. And while there have been times I worry about not being on the track of starting a family, I have really started to embrace this stage of life that I'm in and the freedom that comes with it. I love that I can have a last minute rooftop cookout and hang out with friends well into the night, long after our plates have been cleared and the sun has set behind the palm trees on a Sunday night like I did last night.

Santa Monica rooftop sunset

Whatever stage of life you may find yourself in, there is freedom in it. Your freedom just might look different than my freedom. You may not think there is freedom in being stuck at home with small children, but just think about how many people would do anything to have that problem. Both our stages of life have their ups and downs. After all, doesn't everything in life?

Thomas Paine said, "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."

Anyone who ever did anything great knows that it doesn't come easy. The freedom that billionaires have - the freedom that Bill Gates has, that Steve Jobs had - comes as a result of years of hard work. They put in their 10,000 hours as Malcolm Gladwell talks about in Outliers.

Bottom line: there is freedom in all our lives. There are blessings all around us. We just have to shift our perspective in order to recognize them. We can focus on the negative, on all the hard things about our lives, the day to day struggle... or we can choose to see the positive, to truly embrace the many great things we have going on in our lives, to see each new day as the blessing it truly is. I'm going to choose to focus on the latter. And what better week to do so than celebrating Independence Day this 4th of July.

Texas sunset over the lake last year on July 4

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." Galations 5:1