It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Price of Living Authentically

The Invitation doesn’t just ask if we can love. It asks if we can be honest—even when it costs us something. I love this poem because it cuts through the small talk and gets to who you are beneath it all

This poem calls out all the ways we avoid truly living.

Can we be true to ourselves, even when it disappoints others?
Can we risk looking foolish for the things that make us feel alive?
Can we stand in the fire of our own transformation and not back down?

This isn’t the kind of love-and-light spirituality that bypasses reality. It’s raw. It’s real. It’s standing at the edge of everything you thought you knew and saying yes anyway.

Not because it’s easy.
Not because there are guarantees.
But because the alternative is a half-lived life.

So Here’s the Invitation

If you feel this—if these words are crawling under your skin—it’s because they’re meant to.

You’re someone who sees the world differently.
You feel things deeply, even when it hurts.
You know there’s something more, even if you can’t always name it.

So this is your moment. Your wake-up call. Your permission slip to stop waiting, stop hiding, and start living like you mean it.

Say yes to yourself. To your dreams. To whatever it is that makes you feel alive.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what makes a life worth living.