keep pouring love, kindness and creativity out into the world. There is always enough.

If every day contains a golden opportunity, then every day also gives us a way to pour into our world. I grew up in a Football (American) household. Everything was win or lose, friend or foe, all or nothing. If someone became a millionaire, that was it. The game was over and they won. It was time for them to go off into their happily ever after and stuff their bed with their laurels. Effort was something only to be extended in order to win and once you won no more effort was required. The season was over and there wasn’t anything to do until spring training began.

Life doesn’t work that way and for anyone who has actually participated in sports seriously, sports don’t work that way either. In sports, that approach leads to injuries and poor performance. In life, that same approach leads to instability in careers, relationships, health and finances. I’m not referring to the grind. Pouring into our world is not something that requires endless toil. Grinding is still focused on a goal, an endpoint, or a win. There’s an assumption that it will not be a forever situation. Pouring is daily. It is not a means to an end. It is living in such a way that we embody our goal today. Want love in our life? Then be loving. Want kindness in our life? Be kind, especially when it won’t be noticed. Want financial stability? Live with balance, make decisions from a place of self-confidence and knowledge rather than fear.

What happens when we don’t know how to love, or have financial knowledge, or understand kindness? Then it’s up to us to learn. That is the purpose of the off-season. The best time to learn about taxes isn’t the day you’re filing them (I am so guilty of this one). Practicing love, and learning what that means, is not something that we should wait to learn until our spouse presents us with divorce papers. Understanding kindness relies on us first recognizing it. While we pour into the world we are also pouring into ourselves. The athlete that notices they’re losing flexibility as they age might spend their off-season waiting for spring training and losing even more flexibility in the process. Or they might choose to take up martial arts or yoga in order to increase their flexibility. If they choose to pour energy into themselves and their health, that also pours energy into their team. It may even influence and help others around them in ways they don’t see, or expect.

We are always living our future. How we live today creates tomorrow. It’s all connected. Days are something we made up to help us communicate. The dishes don’t magically go back to their cupboard, all sparkling clean, at midnight. We understand – at least I believe we do – that those dishes will be still dirty in the morning. But we seem to believe that our being unkind today will not bring less kindness tomorrow. That somehow we will be better with money by using it rather than taking a class. Or that those around us will know we love them, even when we don’t live like we love them.

Whether it’s in sports or in our daily lives, we need to expend effort to live. When we have found the love of our lives, that is not the day to stop being loving, that is the day to love more. When our days are filled with kindness, it’s not the time to stop being kind. It’s time to work on filling the nights with kindness. When we’ve reached financial stability is not the time to go on a spending spree, or stop what we’ve done to get to that stability. It is instead the time to share our knowledge and work on expanding our stability. The only day when we are done and the points are tallied, the winners and losers decided and declared, is the day after our death.

Keep pouring in heartbreak and harvest, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad times, for richer or poorer because yesterday created today and today will create tomorrow.