Dear Bernard,

Have you heard of the term "thinking outside of the box?"

I would quite frankly be shocked if you haven't. Many times we say this when we are trying to find unconventional solutions to various problems. Thinking outside the box is meant for you to stretch your way of thinking.

How can we think outside the box if we don't know what our box is? Do we really know our limit; the space where we might be most comfortable? And of course, we have many boxes for the many facets of our lives.

I am thinking about this as I write on Wednesday evening, September 11 (23 years after the terror attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.).

So many things today make me think of the boxes that so many of us have built around ourselves. Do we have boxes that only include Democrats or Republicans? Is our box made up of just Christians and not other religions? Maybe you can only be an American citizen to be inside a box.

If my house was on fire, would I care how the first responder voted? Would it matter to me what their nationality is? So many things that may exclude them from my box are just not important when it really comes down to it.

While this is not directly related, I read this on Wednesday morning and felt it was worth sharing. This is from the Daily Stoic:

On this day in 2001, Brian Sweeney was a passenger trapped on hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, which was heading straight for the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Facing this unimaginable fate, he reached out to his wife with a final message through the plane’s seatback phone.

“I just want you to know I absolutely love you,” Sweeney told his wife’s voicemail. “I want you to do good, go have good times. Same to my parents and everybody, and I just totally love you, and I’ll see you when you get here.”

Imagine the terror of that moment 23 years ago. The context of his call could not be more extreme. Yet Sweeney’s words reflect not panic, but calm. Not fear, but love. It calls to mind what Marcus Aurelius wrote in book 1 of Meditations, where he notes the most important lessons he learned throughout his life and the people who taught him those lessons. It was from his teacher Sextus, Marcus writes, he learned “to be free of passion and yet full of love.”

Hearing Sweeney’s voice come through the phone (you can hear the recording here), there’s not a trace of frenzy or terror. It’s free of passion—free of anger, free of despair, free of everything except love. Because love isn’t just an emotion—it’s a courageous force that drives out fear, sharpens resolve, and fills us with purpose. “Pure love,” Seneca said, “careless of all other things, kindles the soul.”

So today, on the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, let us, as Marcus said and as Sweeney was, be full of love. Let us tell those we love that we absolutely and totally love them. Let us answer with love to every situation and problem we face. Indeed, there is almost no situation in which passion helps, but almost every situation is made better when it is full of love.

I hope after a little time and reflection you allow yourself to live outside your box.

As always, thanks for reading.

Bernie & Chad