I’ve been thinking about time. All of it.

Earth formed 4.54 billion years ago.
Our early ancestors walked upright about 6 million years ago.
Modern humans arrived about 300,000 years ago.
Civilization began about 6,000 years ago, when we first built cities.

And here I am, nearly 75 years into my turn.

Set against those numbers, a single life can look small. I see it as an invitation.

Every one of those years worked to make us. Stars burned. Oceans formed. Someone stood upright, someone lit a fire, someone told a story, someone planted a seed and stayed. All of it, unbroken, led to you reading this today. You are not a footnote to time. You are what time has been building.

That changes how I think about my life. Legacy. It isn’t a monument or a name on a building. It is the effect we have on one another.

I know this because of Sally Ann Walsh.

She was my acting teacher from junior high into high school. One day she pulled me aside and asked about the most important feelings in my life: my pain and my happiness. It took courage to ask a young person that, and to wait for the answer. She stayed. It was the first time I felt someone cared about who I was.

She never stopped. When others didn’t stand by me, were silent about my dreams, or my inner feelings, she did. Years later, when I performed at the Kennedy Center, she was in the audience.

I hugged her hard. I told her I loved her for all she taught me about the art of acting, and for caring about who I truly am. I told her how proud I was that she was there. The first person who cared who I was was there to see who I became.

That first conversation lasted a few minutes. It has lasted more than sixty years. It is in every question I ask as a coach and in every word I write, still traveling, reaching people she never met.

That is legacy. One person, caring enough to ask, and caring enough to stay.

So if you look back and wonder whether you used your time well, please hear this: it is not too late, and it doesn’t take long. It takes a moment of real interest in another person. You can offer that today.

Our time in this home, Earth, is brief. But brief is not the same as small. A candle doesn’t burn for long, yet it can light a room, and light another candle before it goes out.

Be grateful for the people who lit yours. Tell them while you can. Then pass it on.

Who asked you the question that changed you?

And who is waiting for you to ask?

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

Please share my Daily.
This also matters – Truth and Facts of Knowing Yourself.

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