Pretty much everyone in their life has reached a turning point. A place where they have to face their demons. To look at their life and see two paths ahead of them. For most of us, on the whole, these moments have been relatively low stakes, even if it doesn’t feel that way at the time. For some people however, they can see one path that leads to salvation and one that leads to prison, or worse. And the path to salvation is locked and barred.

That was the situation faced by a homeless former Navy vet when he stared across at the Taco Bell with his stomach aching from hunger. He needed to eat, badly. And he knew that he could get some money to feed himself fairly easily, but it would require crossing a line he swore he would never cross again. It would be simple to steal a bike, or break into a car, but if he fell back into crime again it would be almost impossible to climb back out. But he didn’t see another option. 

And he would have fallen, if he hadn’t reached out to an old friend. Hearing that he was about to break into a car so he could afford a taco, that old friend bought him a taco. To his old friend, it was nothing, But to our client, it was salvation. It literally changed his life. That taco kept him from going back to prison. That taco set him on the path to get him off the street, off drugs and back into society.

I’m sitting in a room with both of them right now. One of them is my co-founder, the other one is our first client. Alan and I told Beren we get so much mileage out of his taco story, and he was thrilled. “Hey, if my story helps people, f*ing use it as much as you want, man!” Beren still says that taco saved his life. He’s probably not wrong. He asked me today about how to get the most out of therapy, because he’s trying to continue his upward trend. We had a good conversation. He’s going to be just fine.

Yesterday at our first official event, we remembered the people we have lost along the way. Today I sit with our first client and celebrate a life we saved. This is our story. Life, and death, and personal growth. We are here to save as many people we can, and those we can’t we will carry their stories. This is who we are. This is $O$.