I like the sentiment expressed in this poem by Dawna Markova posted today on the inward/outward website:

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

I like the poem because she writes so eloquently of the sort of life I long for … but am not always ready to risk going for!

And I like it because she writes so eloquently of a life that is not merely “mine.” She doesn’t ask that her seeds might bloom — for her glory, that her blossoms might bear fruit — for her benefit, but that each might be passed on to another in whom they will work their beautiful and nurturing effects.