Writing is one of the most sacred acts of human connection. It is an alchemy of thought and language, a bridge between souls, a way to reach across time and space to say, I was here, I saw this, I felt this, and maybe you did too. A writer’s work is never just words on a page—it is a transmission of feeling, an offering, a spark sent into the world in the hope that it will catch fire in another’s heart.

I have always believed that if you want to capture minds, you must first capture hearts. Writing, when done with honesty, when done with feeling, does exactly that. It is a thread that binds us together, reminding us that despite our differences—our backgrounds, our struggles, our triumphs—we are all living this human experience together.

There are writers who spend their lives chasing the big story—the grand narrative, the once-in- a-lifetime moment that will shake the world. But some of the greatest stories come from the small things, the everyday moments, the trials and hardships that forge us.

People want to know that their lives count. And they do.

There is profound meaning in the work we do, no matter how simple it seems. Some of the most extraordinary stories are found in the rhythm of daily life: the logger in Montana, the waitress who greets her regulars with a warm smile, the waste management worker who keeps the town clean and waves to the children watching from the window. Every role matters. Every job has dignity. And every person has a story worth telling.

I believe in this deeply. It’s why I write. It’s why I seek out the moments that others might overlook. When I wrote my first inspirational essay about logging with my son Gus in Montana, I didn’t think of it as a grand story—I simply wanted to capture what I saw. But something remarkable happened. Gus shared the essay with the men he worked with, and one of them, a man named Beau, said something that stayed with me: “I didn’t realize my job was that cool. I didn’t realize I was making such a difference”.

But he was. They all were.

That is what I want to illuminate in my writing—that whether you are a doctor, a nurse, a lawyer, a paralegal, a garbage collector, a janitor, a farmer, a mechanic—you are part of something bigger. What you do matters. Who you are matters. And it all deserves to be celebrated.

And it is not just the moments of joy and triumph that deserve to be told. It is the hardship. The struggle. The times we thought we wouldn’t make it through. Because if life is a grand story, then these are the chapters that transform us.

It is often the trivial things, the mundane things, the trials we think are breaking us that are actually giving life its meaning. The hardships we resist, the challenges we curse, the moments we believe are too painful to bear—these are the very fires that forge us.

If we look at these trials as negative, they are negative. But if we see them as experiences meant to refine us, to strengthen us, to expand us into something greater than we were before—then that is exactly what they become.

Certainly, that is what my life has been.

I have faced trials that could have left me bitter, moments that could have hardened me, but I have chosen instead to see them as the fire that made me stronger. And when we write about these things—when we give voice to our struggles, when we lay bare the things that have shaped us—we give meaning to everyone’s life. We remind people that they are not alone. We offer them food for the soul.

Writing is both a mirror and a window. It reflects the truths of the writer, and in doing so, offers the reader a way to see themselves. And when we recognize ourselves in another’s words—when a passage makes us pause and say, Yes, I know that feeling—we are no longer alone.

This is why writing matters. This is why stories matter. They stitch the fabric of our collective humanity. They allow us to stand together, to weep for the same sorrow, to cheer for the same victory, to recognize the sacredness of each other’s lives.

It is not unlike the magic of a great comedian, who can take a room full of strangers—people from different walks of life, different backgrounds, different struggles—and make them all laugh at the same time. That is a power beyond entertainment; it is a recognition of shared humanity.

Writing does the same thing. A single line can make thousands of people cry, a single scene can make a roomful of readers catch their breath. Writing, like comedy, reaches into the universal experiences of life—love, failure, triumph, longing—and brings them into the light, where we can all see them, where we can all feel them.

We cry at the same stories. We gasp at the same betrayals. We cheer for the same victories. That is why we watch sports, why we watch the Olympics—because we understand what it means to strive, to struggle, to work toward something and to win. And we stand up and celebrate not just for the athlete, but for ourselves, for the part of us that knows what it is to fight for something.

To be a writer is to be a translator of the human experience. It is to take the invisible and make it seen, to take the unspoken and give it voice. It is to remind people, in a world that often tries to separate us, that we are not alone.

And so, I write. I write from my heart because that is the only way to truly reach another’s. I write about what I know because what I know is what I can give. I write about the personal because it is, in the end, the most universal.

I write to celebrate the ordinary, to remind people that there is magic in the everyday. That a logger in Montana is doing something incredible. That a waitress is making someone’s day brighter. That a truck driver is carrying the goods that keep our world moving. That every single person is a thread in this great tapestry of humanity, and without them, it would unravel.

And I write about the trials—the hardships, the setbacks, the dark nights of the soul—because they, too, are part of the story. They, too, make us who we are. If we resist them, they crush us. If we embrace them, they shape us into something greater.

It is love. It is trials. It is triumph. It is all of it that makes life beautiful.

In a world where so much is fleeting, stories remain. Words remain. Connection remains. And that is why writing is, and always will be, one of the most sacred and necessary acts of being human.