Picture this: You're walking down the sidewalk on a busy street in the middle of downtown. It's just past lunch hour and you look skyward and see the tall business buildings and apartment complexes rise around you. There's a cool breeze that is funneled through the city and the sky is clear with a few puffy white clouds. The traffic is kind of busy, but moving smoothly. There are dozens of other people walking around you, but then you think to yourself, wow, look at how dirty the windows are. You then take a closer look around you and see that nearly every window in every building is closed and the blinds down or the curtain pulled shut.

Windows. Such a simplistic thing in our very complex world. The panel of clarity that separates the inside from the out, but still allowing us to see the view. Too often nowadays do we shut the blinds on our own windows. We block out the scenery and the natural light in our lives. We retreat to our artificial sources of illumination and stay hidden behind the safety of our curtain-drawn rooms. We have stopped daring to look at the view and how far it can reach. Too scared are we to open the window back up to allow fresh air to blow over us. We have all been conditioned to keep to ourselves and block out the outside world in fear of the unknown.

Some windows are still uncovered, but are dirty and foggy and hard to see out of. Individuals within society have had their glass dirtied too many times and have given up, the effort to keep their clear view clean too much stress and work. We have succumbed to conformity and normalization of the mundane. Going day to day in the same fashion, a rut forming from your constant footsteps that retrace themselves every day. We have given up, we have fallen into despair, we have lost hope. It can be a challenge to open the curtain and let the light in sometimes. The moments where you want to just stay in the dark are the moments that need the window open the most. The stuffy air needs to be replaced with the freshness of a new day. Your desk lamp needs to be unplugged and taken place by the sunlight streaming in through the open window.

It's past time to grab our rags and buckets of water to wipe away the grim and dirt we have allowed to cake our windows. It's high time to rip the curtains off the wall and open the shutters wide. Let the breeze in, feel the warmth of the sun on your face as you lean out the newly open window and take a huge breath of fresh air. A breath of new life. Life can get you down and can dirty the window. Sometimes your window might even break. But you can replace it, you can repair it, you can open your window again. It's never too late to let a little light inside. I challenge you that you open your window today, tomorrow, and every day after that.