The Measure of Your Value

What 250 messages and a quiet day taught me about what truly makes a life meaningful.

The final day of filming SOUL ON FIRE began before 5 a.m. on Friday. It ended 19 hours later, getting home after midnight.

It was a beautiful, exhausting, unforgettable day.

We filmed some of the most iconic scenes in the movie, starting with my graduation from St. Louis University. Moving locations inside, we captured our wedding at the gorgeous Shrine of Saint Joseph with our actual friends and family seated in the church as extras. Moving locations again, we captured the wedding reception, complete with dancing.

At some point, after countless loops of Sweet Caroline playing overhead, it eventually went silent, Sean McNamara rose from his director’s chair, took off the headset and proclaimed loudly, “That’s a wrap!”

Cheers erupted. Hugs were shared. And there were tears among the director, actors, producers and crew gathered.

After eight years of effort, the movie had been filmed.

Throughout that long day, my phone never stopped buzzing. My phone logged 250 text messages by the time I went to bed.

• Can you get the dress to set?
• What time do busses need to be there?
• Should your dad wear a tuxedo?
• Can you head back…we need your actual hands to shoot a scene?
• How would Jack have looked when he handed you the ball?
• Did you dip Beth when dancing?
• Where is the dinner?
• Can I bring a friend?

Two hundred and fifty messages. It was an awesome day, and I was somehow in the middle of it all.

Then Monday arrived.

I rolled over, looked down at my phone and squinted.

Hmmm. Strange. Zero messages.

By noon there were a total of three.

Two of them were from Beth. She was working and wanted to remind me to take the trash out.

My friends, I smiled- not because the messages were funny, but because the sudden changed made me realize how quickly we start believing the noise around us is proof of our worth.

We count emails, likes, invitations, meetings. We let motion masquerade as meaning. The more we do and the more we are needed, the more important we convince ourselves we are.

And yet, those 250 messages on Friday didn’t make my life more valuable. And those three messages on Monday didn’t make it any less.

The truth is that the best measures of success and worth do not typically buzz in your pocket or toast loudly on some studio set. They rarely get broadcast, aren’t often celebrated and instead show up in quiet places like a morning prayer, a walk with a friend, and a dinner table surrounded with the people who know you best.

So, as you step into this week, resist the pressure to equate busy with important. Get off the treadmill of believing that running faster makes you better. Choose to slow down and celebrate not that you’ve done it all, but that you are alive at all.

Because in the end, the noise will stop and the messages will slow down. And when they do, you’ll recognize that your life was never made meaningful by how much the world needed you.

You’ll remember it was made meaningful by how fully you loved, how deeply you lived, and how present you were for the people who mattered most.

Today is your day. Live Inspired.