I have visited Italy five times and cannot seem to get enough of it. I am drawn to the culture that honors beauty in both art and everyday life. La bella vita is about slowing down, enjoying delicious food, lingering over conversation, and ending the day watching the sun slip below the horizon—less about adding to life, more about being present to it.
One of my favorite stops in Italy is Florence's Galleria dell'Accademia, where Michelangelo's David is on display. After visiting there with my husband a few years ago, I was excited to share it with my children last November. They thought it was humorous that I was so enthusiastic about a sculpture of a naked man.
We purchased timed tickets and waited outside for our turn to enter. When we finally stepped inside, we rounded a corner into a long hallway lined with unfinished Michelangelo sculptures known as The Prisoners.
The figures appear trapped. A shoulder pushes through the marble, an arm reaches forward, a leg strains to break free while the rest of the body remains buried in stone. Even centuries later, you can still see the grooves left by Michelangelo's chisel, as though the figures have always been there, waiting to be released but never given their freedom.
At the end of the corridor, the space opens into a soaring, light-filled gallery where David stands alone beneath a domed ceiling. The sculpture is stunning. It took my breath away. Something about the statue was stirring—almost spiritual. Tears filled my eyes.
It didn't look like marble.
It looked alive.
The veins rose gently beneath the surface of the stone, muscles tightened across his shoulders and forearms, tendons stretched beneath the skin. His weight rested naturally on one leg while the other relaxed, as if he might shift his balance or take a step at any moment. Even his expression seemed to carry quiet resolve. I couldn't stop wondering how someone could breathe so much life into a block of stone.
Then I learned that Michelangelo didn't think he had created David at all. He believed David had been there all along.
"I didn't create David," he is often quoted as saying. "He was already in there. I just chipped away everything that wasn't David."
Whether those were his exact words isn't what matters. The idea is that David wasn't built—he was uncovered. Each strike of the chisel removed everything that wasn't David.
As I stood there, I thought about how we have been conditioned to approach our lives in the opposite way.
We keep trying to build ourselves by accumulation. More goals. More commitments. More expectations. More approval.
But what if the life we really want isn't waiting to be built, but uncovered?
Maybe intentional living isn't about becoming someone else.
Maybe it's about chipping away everything that isn't really us.
I spend so much time with parents who feel like they are failing because they are not doing enough. They see and hear good ideas and feel as though they should add them to their already layered block of marble, stacking more on top of what is already heavy. The problem is not a lack of good ideas—there are infinite good ideas. The problem is the assumption that they all belong.
Together, we begin to notice the language shaping that pressure. Every "should" is another layer of stone pressed onto the sculpture. It carries obligation, and obligation is almost always inherited, not chosen.
But "I could" is different. "I could" creates space. It steps back from the marble and asks what actually belongs. It acknowledges capacity without surrendering discernment.
And just as importantly, we talk about the power of no. No is not failure. No is not falling behind. No is the chisel in your hand. It takes awareness, courage, and trust to remove what does not belong—and that is something worth honoring.
When we say yes, we say it fully, because a true yes is not partial. It is something we intentionally carve into the sculpture of our lives.
We don't need to make this process heavy. We aren't actually carving decisions into stone. We are shaping a life. We can reassess, adjust, and refine as we go. We do not need certainty to choose—only clarity about what belongs in the form we are creating right now.
These are the kinds of questions I often explore in coaching sessions. We slow things down. We step back from the marble. We separate urgency from importance. We look at what is actually part of the form and what is just excess stone waiting to be removed. We create space to hear what matters beneath the noise.
The question is no longer, Can I do this? It becomes, Does this belong?
Stephen Covey spent decades teaching that effectiveness isn't about doing more. It's about deciding what matters most before life decides for you. Otherwise, the urgent has a way of crowding out the important.
That's the paradox. We think saying yes creates a bigger life, but often it just adds more marble. Every yes is also a no—a yes to one thing is a no to something else that may matter more.
Maybe saying no isn't selfish.
Maybe it's just sculpture.
Every intentional no removes what doesn't belong, and with each removal, clarity begins to appear.
As I walked back through the streets of Florence, I realized I hadn't just been looking at a masterpiece. I'd been looking at a metaphor.
We keep trying to build ourselves by accumulation.
But the life you want is not waiting for you to add one more thing. It is already there, hidden beneath obligations, expectations, and distractions that were never meant to stay.
Intentional living is not the art of becoming more.
It is the art of uncovering what was always there.