I’ve loved a simple line for years: “The one who made teeth will make use of them.” I have no idea who said it.
The older I get, the less it feels like a metaphor and the more it feels like a description of how life actually works.
Teeth aren’t ambitious. They don’t hustle. They don’t justify themselves. They don’t worry about whether food will arrive. They’re part of a system that already knows what it’s doing.
The same seems to be true of us.
The things that are most natural in us—the qualities that show up without effort, the ways people respond to us before we’ve done anything impressive—aren’t accidents. They’re not personality quirks or marketing problems to be solved. They’re just what we are.
When I’ve tried to live as something I’m not—pushing, forcing, positioning, trying to be more “useful” or “impressive”—fear shows up immediately. Scarcity shows up. Everything feels tight and brittle.
But when I’m simply where I belong—listening, calming, noticing, making space—there’s no fear. Not because I’m brave, but because I’m aligned. Things arrive the way food arrives for teeth: quietly, without drama, without needing to be summoned.
That doesn’t mean luxury. It means sufficiency. Enough.
This is the part people miss when they turn purpose into strategy. They start with need and try to work backward into meaning. They invent a reason big enough to scare themselves into motion.
But life works the other way around. What’s made for something is fed by it. Not because you earned it. Not because you manifested it. But because the system already knows how to sustain its own parts.