September 8, 2025
Every day I write and reflect on the Thought of the Day and Question of the Day, two small prompts that somehow manage to tug me into big reflections about life, choices, and the weird stuff we all think about but rarely say out loud. Today’s Thought challenges how we measure the value of life, and today’s Question dares us to imagine who we’d choose to meet in a dark alley (and why on earth we’d do that in the first place). Both feel weighty at first glance, but as always, there’s room for humor, honesty, and maybe even some mischief in between.
Thought of the Day: Don’t value your life so much that death scares you. Cherish life such that you would lay down your own for another.
This Thought of the Day packs a punch. It’s not the kind of thing you can skim past like a fortune cookie message and forget five minutes later. It forces you to ask: what is life worth if you’re clinging so tightly to it that you’re afraid to truly live?
Here’s the thing, most of us live in varying degrees of fear. Fear of loss. Fear of failure. Fear of not being remembered. But ironically, when we grip life too tightly, we often end up missing it. It’s like holding sand in your fist; squeeze too hard and it slips away faster.
Cherishing life doesn’t mean bubble-wrapping yourself against every risk. It means living in such a way that, if the moment came to sacrifice for someone else, your kids, your spouse, a stranger in need, you wouldn’t hesitate. You’d know your life wasn’t wasted because it was lived with love, purpose, and generosity.
That sounds noble on paper, but let’s be honest: sometimes cherishing life looks smaller than that. It might mean showing up to your kid’s school play even when work is overwhelming. Or putting down your phone to actually look your spouse in the eyes during dinner. Or even just taking the time to breathe when you’re drowning in to-do lists.
It’s about living in a way that makes the idea of death less frightening because you know, deep down, you didn’t squander your chance to love people well.
I’ve written before about how people want you to do well, but not better than them—a reminder that fear and comparison often keep us from living fully. And I’ve reflected on how sometimes we need to stop pulling people out of the river and figure out why they’re falling in. This Thought builds on both—reminding us that real life isn’t about survival alone, it’s about meaning.
Question of the Day: If you were going to meet someone in a dark alley, who would you meet and why?
It’s a strange thought experiment, isn’t it? Why a dark alley at all? Why not a cheerful coffee shop, daylight streaming through the windows, lattes in hand, and the safety of other people buzzing around us?
Because a dark alley strips away the pleasantries. There’s no background music, no polite distractions, no safe escape into small talk. In the alley, it’s just you, the other person, and whatever you both carry into that moment. The shadows force honesty. The risk forces clarity.
So who would I meet there? Someone I need to have a real conversation with, one that can’t hide behind niceties. Maybe an old friend I’ve lost touch with, where the years of silence have built up too much noise for a casual coffee to break through. Or someone I’ve wronged, where reconciliation feels too fragile for the bright stage of a café. Or maybe even someone I admire deeply, because in the alley there’s no pedestal, no performance, just two human beings standing in the dark.
The alley demands that we face each other as we are. It’s uncomfortable, yes, but sometimes the most important exchanges in life can’t happen under fluorescent lights with foam hearts floating in cappuccinos. They need the raw, unfiltered backdrop of a place where fear and honesty live side by side.
So maybe the better question isn’t just who I’d meet in that alley, but why I’d choose that setting in the first place. Sometimes daylight hides too much. Sometimes the dark is where the truth finally comes out.
Final Thoughts
Today’s Thought of the Day and Question of the Day both circle around the same idea: life is most meaningful when we stop hiding from the hard stuff. To cherish life is to live it with such love and purpose that you wouldn’t cling to it out of fear. And to imagine a meeting in a dark alley is to admit that sometimes we need spaces that strip away the masks—places where honesty has no choice but to stand bare in the shadows.
It’s easy to meet in the light. It’s harder, but maybe more important, to face someone in the dark. That’s where the conversations happen that can’t be softened by background music or distracted by latte art. That’s where we see who we really are, and who others really are, without the polish of daylight.
So now I’ll leave it with you:
- Who would you meet in that alley, and why?
- And what truth might come out there that couldn’t survive in the safety of a sunny café?
Drop your answer in the comments below—I’d love to hear it. And if you’d like to keep wrestling with questions like these, join my free daily email to get a new Thought of the Day and Question of the Day sent straight to you.