The Light We Choose: A Monday Reflection

Before we were names, before we were nations, before we were even human, we were something else entirely.

We were dust adrift in the infinite, the remnants of things that burned and broke apart, scattered across the cold silence of the cosmos. We were the breath of dying stars, the fragments of supernovas, carried across light-years, waiting for the moment we would become something new.

And that moment came.

Over millennia, the universe gathered its pieces, shaping us from the very elements that built galaxies. We were born not from stillness, not from absence, but from fire, movement, expansion. The same forces that birth stars live within us, the same energy that fuels creation pulses through our veins.

But to be made of light is not the same as choosing to shine.

The Choice

The cosmos does not ask permission to exist. The stars do not apologize for their burning. And yet, as humans, we hesitate. We question whether we are worthy of light, whether we are strong enough to carry it, whether it is safer to pull inward, to shield ourselves, to shrink.

And in that hesitation, we face a choice.

We can be a star, burning with purpose, radiating warmth, not because we demand recognition but because that is what stars do. They do not measure their brilliance by the shadows they cast, nor do they hoard their light for themselves. They simply shine, and in doing so, they give life to the planets that form around them, to the worlds that would be cold without them.

Or we can be a black hole, collapsing inward, refusing to give, only taking. We can become so heavy with our own bitterness, our own fears, our own unwillingness to change, that we pull others into our gravity and consume them. Black holes do not create; they erase. They unravel. They take without end, and still, they remain empty.

But the universe did not create us to collapse. It created us to expand.

The Fear of Light

Plato once wrote, “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

How often do we fear our own brilliance? How often do we silence ourselves, dim ourselves, make ourselves smaller for the comfort of others? How often do we believe that to be visible is to be vulnerable, and to be vulnerable is to be unsafe?

But the truth is this: to shine is not to be arrogant—it is to be fully alive.

The most powerful people in the world are not the ones who take from others, who hoard wealth, who grasp at control. The most powerful people are the ones who illuminate the paths of others, who pour out wisdom, who share warmth, who create instead of destroy. They understand that true strength is not in how much they can own, but in how much they can give without losing themselves.

The Weight of Shadows

Some will tell you that the world is cruel, that kindness is a weakness, that the only way to survive is to take before someone else takes from you. They will tell you to keep your heart guarded, your dreams smaller, your light dim. They will call you naïve for believing in possibility, for trusting in connection, for hoping that the world can be better than it is.

But the ones who say this have already collapsed.

The ones who tell you to take and never give, to conquer and never build, to consume and never create—these are the ones who have mistaken power for purpose. They have become so dense with their own fear that they cannot see beyond themselves. They have forgotten what it means to burn with passion, with wonder, with the unshakable belief that something greater is always possible.

The Truth of the Stars

And so we must remember:

The stars that birthed us did not hesitate in their burning, and neither should we.

To shine is a risk. It means being seen, being vulnerable, being open. It means offering warmth to those who have stood in the cold for too long. It means refusing to collapse, even when the weight of existence presses in.

But to shine is also our birthright.

We were never meant to shrink. We were never meant to be hollow. We were never meant to steal the light of others when we were given the power to create our own.

We are not here to take. We are here to illuminate.

So as this week begins, ask yourself:

Will I expand or collapse?

Will I radiate or consume?

Will I be a force of warmth or a force of destruction?

You are stardust. You are fire. You were made to shine.