What’s Left When You Get Down to One

By Wey Smiley · 4 min read · Faith · Healing · Community · Hope

On the first day of my psychology class, I ask my students to write down three things they cannot live without. Then, one by one, I ask them to cross each one off — until nothing is left.

It sounds simple. It never is.

I tell them: write down three things you cannot live without. Not three things you like — three things you believe you could not survive losing. Then I ask them to share what they picked, and why. The “why” is where the room gets quiet. Someone writes my mother. Someone writes my phone, and then looks embarrassed, and then explains it’s how they talk to the person they love. Someone writes my faith. Someone writes my kids.

Then I ask them to cross one off

You can feel the resistance. Crossing one off means choosing. It means admitting that even the things that hold us up can be taken away. We go from three, to two, to one.

Write the three things you cannot live without.
Share what you picked — and why.
Cross one off. Notice what that costs you.
Cross off another. Now you’re down to one.
Cross off the last one. Everything.

And then I ask the question that the whole exercise is really about: What is left?

“This is why psychology is not a ‘lite’ subject — even if you never think your career will need it.”

Because the truth is, some people are already living at zero. No family. No friends. No phone, no career, no car, no home, no children to come back to. People walk past them every day. The exercise isn’t morbid — it’s a mirror. It shows my students, in ninety seconds, the weight of what others carry with nothing, and how quickly any of us could get there.

So what do we do with that?

We treat everyone — every single person — with love, respect, grace, gentleness, and kindness. Not because we know their story, but because we don’t. The person at zero may be standing right next to you, holding it together with a strength you’ll never see.

That is the whole heart of Breathing 4A Reason. When you strip everything away, what remains is the breath — and the truth that you are still here. Still breathing. Still worthy of care. You are here for a reason. And so is the person beside you.

♥

If this exercise stirred something in you — grief, gratitude, a name you couldn’t cross off — that feeling deserves a safe place to land. That’s what we’re here for. Inhale hope. Exhale what no longer serves you. And remember: even down to one, even down to nothing, there is still a reason to keep breathing.