Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose

Host: The morning light spilled through the half-open curtains, painting soft stripes of gold and shadow across the wooden floor. The city outside was just beginning to stir—the low hum of engines, the sound of a distant vendor, the faint clatter of footsteps on pavement still wet from last night’s rain.

Jack sat at the kitchen table, his shirt sleeves rolled up, a cup of black coffee cooling beside his hand. He looked tired, not from lack of sleep, but from too much thinking. Across from him, Jeeny leaned against the counter, her hair loose, her eyes still heavy from dreams, yet glowing with that quiet tenderness that mornings sometimes bring.

Host: The air between them was calm but fragile, like a glass surface about to ripple with a single thought.

Jeeny: “Kevyn Aucoin once said, ‘Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices—today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.’”

She let the words hang in the air like a prayer, her voice soft yet sure.

Jeeny: “Isn’t that beautiful, Jack? To wake and choose your own meaning each day?”

Jack: (gruffly) “Beautiful, sure. But idealistic. People don’t wake up and choose joy, Jeeny. They wake up to bills, deadlines, regrets. The world doesn’t let you choose how you feel. It just hands you the day, and you deal with it.”

Host: The light shifted slightly, a slow drift of cloud muting the sun. Jeeny’s fingers brushed her mug, tracing its edge as if holding back a response.

Jeeny: “You’re wrong. Life isn’t what it hands you—it’s how you hold it. Even pain can be a choice if you decide to feel it instead of running from it.”

Jack: (snorts) “That’s poetic, but tell that to someone who’s buried their child, or lost their job, or lives with constant pain. You think they can just ‘choose joy’? That’s not freedom. That’s delusion.”

Host: The silence that followed was heavy, but not cruel. It was the pause between lightning and thunder, when truth waits to be met by its echo.

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I think that’s the point. Aucoin wasn’t saying we can avoid suffering. He said we can feel it—without letting it destroy us. To feel life, not deny it. That’s what makes us human.”

Jack: “And what if feeling it is what destroys you?”

Jeeny: (leaning forward) “Then at least you lived. You didn’t numb yourself. You didn’t hide behind cynicism and call it wisdom.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing slightly. The steam from his coffee rose between them, curling like a thin veil of tension.

Jack: “You think I hide? I deal with life head-on. I don’t sugarcoat it with quotes or morning mantras. People need to act, not ‘feel’ their way through misery.”

Jeeny: “But action without awareness is blindness. Look at how many people run from one distraction to another—jobs, screens, substances—because they can’t bear to sit with themselves. That’s not living, Jack. That’s surviving.”

Host: Her words struck like soft raindrops against steel. Jack’s eyes softened for a brief second before hardening again.

Jack: “Maybe survival is enough. Maybe that’s the most honest form of living there is. You wake up, you push through, you endure. This whole ‘choosing joy’ thing—it's just a privilege for people who can afford to romanticize their pain.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s a discipline. It’s a choice of perspective, not circumstance. Viktor Frankl wrote about that in the camps—how even in horror, humans could choose meaning. That’s not privilege, Jack. That’s strength.”

Host: The room grew still. The clock ticked softly. The world outside seemed to fade away, leaving only the quiet thrum of two hearts beating against opposing truths.

Jack: (slowly) “Frankl found meaning because he had no other choice. You can’t universalize that. People aren’t built like that. Most of us just… keep going because stopping feels worse.”

Jeeny: “But don’t you see? Even that’s a choice—to keep going. Every day you get up, make your coffee, sit here, breathe—that’s choosing life, Jack. You’re doing exactly what Aucoin said, even if you don’t believe it.”

Host: The light brightened as the clouds drifted. A sliver of sun cut across the table, lighting up the faint lines on Jack’s hands—hands that had built, fought, held, and endured.

Jack: “I don’t feel like I’m choosing life. I feel like life keeps choosing me, whether I want it or not.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the quiet truth of it—you don’t always choose joy; sometimes you just choose to show up. And that’s enough.”

Host: Jack looked up, meeting her eyes, and for the first time that morning, something in his expression cracked—a small opening, a light behind the storm.

Jack: “You talk like it’s easy. Like waking up isn’t sometimes the hardest part.”

Jeeny: (softly) “It’s not easy. That’s why it’s powerful. Choosing life doesn’t mean smiling through everything. It means staying. Even when it hurts.”

Host: The clock ticked louder now, each second a heartbeat. Jeeny’s eyes glistened, and Jack’s voice, once steady, trembled like a tired flame.

Jack: “When my father died, I remember waking up the next day and thinking, ‘How is the world still moving?’ I didn’t choose anything. I just… existed.”

Jeeny: (whispering) “That was a choice. You stayed. You breathed. You kept the thread unbroken. Maybe that’s what he would’ve wanted—to see you still here, still tasting life, even when it’s bitter.”

Host: The sunlight reached both of them now, washing the kitchen in gold. Outside, the sound of a child’s laughter rose from the street, light and fleeting. Jack’s eyes closed for a moment, as if trying to hold onto that sound.

Jack: “You think that’s what it means—to embrace humanity? Just… to keep tasting the day, even when it burns?”

Jeeny: “Yes. To keep tasting. To let yourself be flawed, be wrong, be real. That’s the only way to feel alive.”

Host: A soft breeze passed through the open window, carrying the scent of rain and earth. Jack took a long breath, and something in his shoulders eased—like a man remembering the weight he didn’t have to carry alone.

Jack: “Then maybe today… I’ll try to choose life. Not joy. Not happiness. Just life. As it is.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “That’s the bravest choice there is.”

Host: The camera would linger there—two people in a quiet kitchen, the light shifting, the world awakening outside. Jack took a sip of his now cold coffee, and Jeeny laughed softly, the sound breaking the stillness like the first note of a song.

Host: Beyond the window, the city glowed—a million souls waking, choosing, failing, and trying again. The day stretched wide and uncertain, yet full of that fragile freedom that comes only from being human.

And as the sunlight caught the rim of Jack’s cup, there was a sense—not of peace, but of presence. The world had not changed. But in that small room, someone had chosen, quietly, to live.