I live in a van on the shores of Central America’s deepest lake. I have not seen a TV show or movie this year. Who has the time? Most days, I watch the early morning stars yield to the sunrise while sipping tea and reading Sufi poetry.

Certain bird calls are as familiar as my heartbeat. I know what flowers and trees give off which aroma. The familiarity of this, the feeling of my feet navigating the ground, amid the lush greenery that abounds. I’m staying longer and longer in the woods. Here there’s no feeling of homesickness—never a feeling of being alone—because I’m always surrounded by everything. I carry my family of relations alongside the hopes in my heart.

An avidly outdoor kid rejoices to look out his adult eyes and see that amid all the ways we almost lost this dream in our 20s—we’ve arrived at our destination—building it out of this forests’ ground by the great grandchildren of the Mayan empire—still more connected than I’ll ever know.

“The sky sings it’s name. The hummingbird sings her name.” What’s that Mayan man saying? Nothing our notions know. But in Katchequel Mayan it makes the sense. Mayans believed the highest form of realty was flowers, poetry, and song—so they’re language is one ongoing song.

What is this life but a dance to some ever-unfolding symphony? When you see yourself, I hope you can’t help but smile. No one will see you until you get a good honest look at yourself. Cut the bullshit. If you don’t tell yourself the full truth and nothing but the truth, everything you say to everyone else will be clouded behind that unfeeling veil.

I had something to prove to others when I hadn’t yet proved the depth of me to myself. But I have watched myself ever so closely—seen now amid the desperation of the fiercest storm a humble hope reigned within and took the wheel. I watched that seed navigate oceans deeper than the night’s darkened sky. I watched it resigned to whatever reality thought best for itself.

I have seen myself cycle through the phases of desire and surrender, have witnessed myself truly hope for us all and I know that if I keep everyone away from the volume knob of my smile, I can shimmer through this dance called life.

If you let others decide your terms, they will call the starvation of your soul a great success, they will term the sum-total of your deepest longings a waste of time.

Promise your heart you’ll listen. Hear those hopes humbly. They won’t speak until you promise to really listen.

Build by day the hope you have for yourself and extend that desire to everyone and everything. There is no other way. There never was.