Awe

There was a time when I was deep in debt.

It was the hardest stretch of my life. In the end, I knew I couldn't go on like that. I had to face my problems.

And it was then that I, for the first time, faced myself honestly.

Not the business. Not the numbers. Myself — where I really stood, what I'd gotten wrong, what I could still do. I stopped lying to myself, and I stopped running.

It was also then that, for the first time, I felt awe toward money. And awe toward my work.

I can't quite explain the feeling. It was something like this: I began to feel that money, and work, were not things to be treated carelessly. They deserved to be met with seriousness, with respect.

From then on, the way I did things changed.

During that time, I forgot a great many things. I forgot that I was in debt. I forgot that I was at the bottom. I forgot the pressure, forgot the worries. I almost forgot myself.

I woke at five every morning, and was asleep by half past nine. A little after five, before the sky was light, I'd ride my bicycle to work. There were no stray thoughts in my head. I just did the things within my reach, that day, one by one, as well as I could.

I began to face my situation honestly. To treat the work honestly. To treat every single step honestly, cutting no corners. And to be honest, too, with my family, my friends, my colleagues, and every customer.

And from that small change, everything — myself, and my business — slowly began to shift.

Slowly, the business grew better and better.

One day, talking with my colleagues, they told me they loved working with me.

About a year later, one morning, I posted a few words for my friends to see. I wrote:

"It just gets better and better as the years roll on."

In that moment, I felt a kind of awe toward the person I'd been in those days. Toward the woman who rode her bicycle before the sky was light, without a single stray thought, just bent on doing the work in front of her, as well as she could.

She had forgotten herself, forgotten the debt, forgotten the bottom she stood at. And yet it was exactly that woman — the one who had forgotten everything — who carried me out of all of it.

Then, in 2024, I came to understand a deeper kind of awe.

That year, I went through a misdiagnosis. It turned out to be a false alarm — but for a while, I stood very close to impermanence, close enough to feel its breath.

When it had all passed, I found that a deep love for life had grown in me. I love my own life. I love my family, and my friends. And I love every single person I have crossed paths with.

Not only people. I love the small animals, too, and the flowers and the grasses.

And I feel a deep awe, especially, for the old trees — the ones that have lived a hundred years.

Their stillness fills me with awe. Through wind and rain, a tree stands there, quietly, roots deep in the ground. It doesn't panic. It doesn't hide. It doesn't fight anyone. It simply roots itself, deeply, and grows, year after year, slowly.

Looking at a tree like that, I often think: this, surely, is what life is meant to look like.

I understood, then, that to wake each morning, to breathe, to do the work in my hands, to love the people beside me — this itself is an immense piece of luck, worthy of a lifetime of awe.

So now, I carry two kinds of awe within me.

One is awe for each thing in my hands — so I do it honestly, do it with care, and cut no corners anywhere.

The other is awe for life itself — so I treasure each day, and I love, tenderly, every person beside me.

I think that's how it is. When you face yourself honestly, awe is born in you. With that awe, you treat each thing in your hands honestly; and you love, gently, every person you meet. And then, slowly, everything begins to come right.

— Marie, Founder of Lyfairs