James Andrews

I owe myself a good life. Everyone else should get the chance to build one too.

My life is mine. I decide how to live it, and the only limit I accept is that my choices shouldn’t take that same freedom from anyone else.

I don’t need meaning handed to me by a religion or by anyone’s approval. I find it in whatever I’ve decided matters to me. In finishing what I said I’d finish. In making something because I wanted it to exist, and in being some use to people while I’m here.

Most people are decent. When I can make someone’s life easier I usually will. Nobody is owed it — I do it because I want to be that kind of person. But I’m not required to wreck myself to prove the point.

I forgive people when I decide to. Forgiveness isn’t trust. Trust gets rebuilt by what someone does next, if it gets rebuilt at all.

I get things wrong. I try not to beat myself up over decisions made without information I didn’t have yet, and I try not to pretend the damage was nothing. Some regrets are worth keeping. They make me better.

We owe each other something too. No one should go hungry, lose their home, miss out on school, or be ruined by getting sick. People who can contribute should. People who genuinely can’t should still live with dignity. The more you have, the more you can give, and the more you should.

I don’t know if there’s a God, or whether anything comes after this. I’m fine not knowing. I don’t need a reward waiting at the end to be decent now. If someone is keeping score, I hope they were paying attention.

A good life doesn’t have to be an easy one. There will be struggle and failure and loss. What matters is that it was mine — that I chased what I cared about, didn’t stand in anyone else’s way, and left a few people better off for having known me.

I hope I’m remembered kindly.