Are you living the life you were meant to live? What would happen if you did? Is that a choice you’d be willing to make? Could you? What‘s stopping you? And who are the people - close or far away, old or young, alive or long gone - who modeled for you what it means to be human? Or simply yourself? Pause for a minute, and ponder this:
“Do I have the right to live my life?”

Author and revered elder Maya Angelou speaks of standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. Her words resonate with me.

I come from a long line of freedom lovers. Women and men of red, black, and mixed lineages who once graced the blessed soil of my homeland. These were beings of immense courage and incredible resolve whose rare saga lives on.

Their lives were a tale of impossible outer circumstances. The greed of other men – entitled immigrants from a distant land, some of whom are part of my people’s ancestry now - sent their lives and societies spiraling down a track of extremes, testing every bit of their limits.

Over two centuries ago, the bold expression of their free will rewrote the fate decreed for them (and mine, as their descendant). The outcome was nothing short of extraordinary:

- the only victorious uprising of enslaved persons in known human history.
- the first Black State on record in modern times
- one of the first two independent free nations in the New World.
- the highest fulfillment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while the prevalent order insisted on robbing whole peoples of theirs.
- the dawning of a world purged of the infamous slave-based economy.

So, do I get the wisdom in Maya Angelou's pregnant remarks? Yes, big time.

My ancestors modeled for me what it means to be human. Their time on earth spoke in so many ways of the beauty and complexity of it. A living-breathing testament to the fact that we are neither defined nor doomed by our circumstances.

My own quest has been about inner freedom. A different beast, no doubt. Still, our battles do meet somewhere. They might be kindred or two sides of the same coin. Related - entwined even - beyond time and space. Just how much? I may never know. But at least I like to think it is so.

Unlike my homeland's Founding Mothers and Fathers, my goal wouldn’t have faced me with a triad of mighty armies to defeat, only some stubborn inner demons of my own. When I navigate the much lighter perils in my life, I think of my ancestors and the incredible odds they had to overcome. I feel inspired by how tight they held to their vision and kept taking brave steps toward their goals. So large was the footprint left by their actions, not just at home but on faraway lives across the Americas, Africa, and Europe!

The brilliance of their saga dazzles. Yet, when I gaze through, I'm struck by something else. And that is everything they did they did with all their human limitations. Neither personal flaws nor the scars and stigmas of enslavement put any of it out of reach. That piece itself is the first seed of freedom. More than all else, it is what I find so uplifting. At its core lies a real gem. A code for living I never want to lose sight of:

- There is power in knowing you have the right, not just to exist, but to exist as you are.
- There is power in acting from that inner knowing, even (and especially) in less-than-ideal situations.
- There is power in disowning nothing. Amid our ordinariness and all that we may find lacking or is yet to happen, we can still hold the wounds and the strength that live side by side within us and rise as a result.

It's about not being "only human" but "fully" human. Embracing with compassion the whole of what is. The wounds and the strength. Permission to just be, to exist more and more as all of who we are, just as we are. Beyond helpful in our moments of joy. Key in our hour of darkness. Then, our fears make a move for the backseat. Then, we grow a little freer. Inch by inch, we start to step into our power. And there is nothing cliché or small about that. In fact, it makes a big difference - not just for us but for those around us.

Is it, thus, "impractical" to say that our rising does matter? Or that, when we do, new possibilities may well see the light of day? Or even that the ripples may extend farther into the world than we ever know?

If it is, then call me a dreamer. For you see, one thing I know for sure: I stand on some deeply human shoulders whose dreams did just that.

This sets me on fire.

And free, time and time again.