We are so busy using our incredible faculties—our senses, our brains, our bodies, and our souls—to work at daily life that we hardly notice just how wonderful these powers really are. Here we are, at the very top of the food chain, so much so that we affect the planet in ways never before seen in earthly history. And whatever story or theory you believe about how we got here, from Charles Darwin and evolution to the Bible and creationism to the Big Bang (or as the Dalai Lama says, “Which Big Bang?”), the universal, cosmic, scientific, or godly power that put us here has given us powers that no other species on the planet has ever attained. Whatever that source, a lot of care and time went into creating us. It is truly miraculous to ponder, even more miraculous to experience. And YOU, your body and mind and just being alive at all, are that miracle.

YOU are an incredible miracle! This is not about how important you are or how much money you have. This is about the universal organism you are, the supreme creation. This is about your magnificent body, your ability to move and survive, and your amazing mental faculties unique in the animal kingdom. It is also about the exquisite intricacy of how your body works to provide all these faculties, keep you healthy, and experience life. It is about your DNA and the miraculous labyrinth of blood and guts and biochemistry inside you, and most of all how you choose to spend your one incredible life.

Did you know that more than 90% of the energy you burn every day is used just to keep you alive and healthy? If you saw yourself the way the universe sees you, this is what you would see: a living, breathing, heart-pumping, blood-circulating, and thinking creature who is endowed with the extraordinary gift of a life to live.

Living in the 90%

The more I learn to appreciate myself and my life in this way, the more I want to take care of my precious health and encourage others to do the same. Knowing the alternative, illness and premature death, gives me all the motivation I need to discover, experiment with, and apply the practices that will keep me healthy and align myself with the way the universe meant me to be. I call it living in the 90%.

For me, living in the 90% means that every day I am less and less distracted with all the things this modern world has to offer to keep me entertained and more and more focused on experiencing the simple yet wonderful presence and joy of being alive and healthy. The emotions of wonder and existing, which I feel as a visceral sense of space inside me, are at the foundation of this experience. How I (and we) even got here, the forces that guide my life, the people I love and interact with, and how I choose to spend my time are many of the things I ponder and experience on this later-life journey. It is how I live my life from the inside out, acknowledge how grateful I am for existing at all, and experience this incredible journey of life.