World Human Spirit Day

On February 17th, we celebrate World Human Spirit Day! It also happens to be Random Acts of Kindness Day, which goes perfectly with the idea of the human spirit!  

Personally, embracing my spirit has been about getting back up when I feel crushed by the weight of the world. It’s what motivates me to create something meaningful to leave behind in this world. It encourages me to share love and life with everyone around me and have hope that things will get better.

It means fighting the depression, telling me there’s no hope in the world, or that I’m wasting my time. It’s finding the time to create something with my hands, whether it’s a painting or an article – like this one. It involves getting up every day, trying to be a better person, learning new things, and growing more each day. And it means working towards and fighting for something bigger than myself. 

When I see a mural on a wall, I feel connected to the person who painted it. The same goes for books I read, movies I watch, or even those I say hello to on the street. I feel their spirit, their emotions, their perspectives. And it empowers my own spirit and makes me happy to be alive to share that connection. If only for a moment in passing.

The Good and the Bad

Having spirit also means embracing the ugly in the world. Feeling the emotions that are not all warm and fuzzy, but then deciding to act on those emotions.

I feel that in my spirit when I see people without homes or people ravaged by extreme weather or other calamities. My spirit hurts when I see the impacts of climate change or the plastic crisis. It weighs heavy on my soul when I hear about yet another species going or becoming extinct.

I feel it when I see or hear of people being harmed, oppressed, or marginalized. It hurts me as I watch people have their rights and freedoms stripped from them right here in our country. It makes my spirit, my very soul, ache with the pain of their sorrow and feelings and their anger. I feel it, and it fuels me. It fuels me to speak out about it and take action against what I am seeing and feeling. 

It’s my spirit that ultimately prompted me to develop this organization. I stepped outside my comfort zone, made new connections, and worked towards something with a purpose and (hopefully) the power to create change. 

These are just my own experiences and interpretations of what it means to be human and share this experience. But there isn’t one single definition of spirit or of being human. Just as the answer to the question of “what is the meaning of life?” has infinite possibilities, depending on who you ask and how they view or feel about the world. 

What is Human Spirit?

The spirit in all of us means different things, to different people, in different ways. The expression of spirit may touch on similar areas of life, but the expression itself is unique for each person. It’s something that’s described in a way many can relate to, but it’s also something that’s felt individually.

The human spirit is wonderful – it defines what it means to be human in an endless capacity. The human spirit pushes us to create and innovate, think of new ideas, and find new ways of doing tasks. 

It’s what inspires us to make art, tell stories, make music, and imagine “impossible” things. It encourages us to write, dance, sing, and perform. 

The human spirit makes us go out and explore, play games and puzzles, test our abilities, and push our limits. 

It gives us the strength to build new things, grow our societies, build our communities, and develop our cultures.

The human spirit leads us to learn, be curious about the world around us, love things in an infinite capacity, help others, have empathy, and be kind. 

Living, Not Just Surviving

Our spirit is also, perhaps most importantly, what makes us not simply survive but to live. We don’t just work to satisfy our basic needs; we work to give our lives meaning, striving to make them worthwhile and work to leave a mark in this world – a memory of our spirit. 

Through this desire to live a life with purpose and meaning, our spirit is what encourages us to keep going and push on in the face of adversity, oppression, and strife.

When we’re held back, have limits placed upon us, or are harmed (as individuals or a group), we keep fighting. We speak out, raise our voices, demand to be heard, be seen, and have our emotions felt. 

It is what brings us together to fight for what’s right and defy what’s wrong; to rebuild ourselves or our communities when torn down, or help others when they need a hand up. 

It’s what enables us to progress and work towards change and towards a better future. 

If there’s a purpose to life, it’s arguably to share in the expression of our shared characteristic of the human spirit. 

That is, to say, we all have a purpose that is both separate yet unique to one another. We all take different paths, live different lives, and embody different purposes in life. But that difference is what also makes us the same. Everything we do is our way of sharing our spirit with the world. 

A Connection Among US

Our spirit connects us all. And that is why we celebrate it and cherish it within one another by appreciating each other’s spirit.

When we read a book or an article or gaze upon and contemplate art, a movie, or a photograph, and when we listen to music or watch people speak, act, dance, or otherwise perform with their bodies – we actively appreciate their spirit and self-expression. 

When we say hello or smile at a stranger on the street, feed someone hungry, give them a blanket when they’re cold, come together to clean up or get involved in our community, and choose to fight together and for each other – we build a better world; we share our spirit and our love.  And our spirit extends beyond each other! 

It extends out into the world through our interest, curiosity, and overall love of the world – the environment, animals, plants – you name it, we humans love it. We pack bond with worms and fungus and bugs and everything you can image.

When we travel to new places, hike or camp in the wilderness, test the limits of our strength in extreme environments, study other living organisms, help and rescue animals, uncover the mysteries of the past, and learn about the natural world, we exhibit our spirit. This curiosity pushes us to progress ourselves and learn more about the world around us. 

Everything we do expresses our spirit and the experience of being human. It’s what makes us different, diverse, and unique, expressing ourselves in an infinite number of ways. 

Hope

To sum it all up, human spirit gives us hope. 

Everything we create and do and embody through our spirit makes life worth living. That’s where hope comes from – what makes it all possible. 

I am confident we’ll continue to grow, despite the issues we face or the things holding us back from reaching our potential. We don’t go down without a fight; it’s that fight within us that made it possible to come so far and accomplish so much. 

So today, and every day, cherish the spirit within yourself and others. Appreciate life and all it offers. Let the beauty and strength that is the human spirit flow through you and empower you to live life with meaning, purpose, love, creation, and curiosity. Always embrace that.