Opening your days

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Gone Today Letter day Left

Each square is a year of your life. Tap one to open its days.

A long-term goal

Write to your future self.

What to put in it
  • Why this matters to you.
  • Who you are today, honestly.
  • What scares you about it.
  • What you hope they did.

Settings

Live to

Evening reminder

Age

Circled boxes are days a letter opens. A dot means you wrote a note that day.

The story behind tonight

In 1521, a young Basque soldier named Íñigo, who lived for glory, was defending the fortress of Pamplona when a French cannonball shattered his leg.

He spent months in bed at his family's castle. He asked for adventure novels. There were none, so he was handed the only books in the house: a life of Christ and the lives of the saints.

Lying there, he noticed something. Daydreams of fame thrilled him for a while, then left him restless and empty. Thinking about the lives of the saints left a quiet peace that lasted. How a thing leaves you feeling, he decided, tells you where your life should go.

He became St Ignatius of Loyola, founded the Jesuits, and turned that noticing into a nightly practice called the Examen: settle, look back over the day, notice your feelings and where they came from, and look toward tomorrow.

He told his companions that if they had to miss every other prayer in a day, the Examen was the one they must never miss.

The practice is older than him. Two thousand years ago, the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote that every night, once the lamp was out, he went back over his whole day, hid nothing from himself, and ended by forgiving himself.

What modern research adds

Tonight's sit is this practice. No religion needed, just about 8 minutes and honesty.

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