At funerals people tell stories, not résumés. Live like you’re collecting stories.

What gets said about somebody when people gather is almost never a list of their achievements. It is the four-hour drive they made for no good reason, the thing they always said, the way they handled someone’s bad night. Those are not accomplishments anybody can plan for directly. They are side effects of how ordinary days got spent with people.

Say yes to one inconvenient, good thing this month: the long drive, the visit, the help somebody needs on a Saturday. That is where the stories come from. Nothing on a transcript competes with them.