Ronni
Well-known Member
- Location
- Nashville TN
I recently watched a short clip from a past America’s Got Talent. It featured a very young woman who was suffering from cancer, she was obviously debilitated. Emaciated, bald, but with the purest voice and spirit. It gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes. The judges were deeply moved by both her talent and her courage. She has since passed away.
She said something so profound when the judges were talking with her about her condition, (obviously extremely painful, and terminal) and even more, about her joy in life.
She said, simply, “You can’t wait till Life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.”
I am so guilty of this. Not because my life is hard, but just because I tend to focus too much on goals or tasks and their completion and it’s that the sense of accomplishment I feel which is one of the things that makes me happy. But see, I forget to enjoy life in the spaces between!
Yeah, there’s satisfaction, and happiness too, in a job well done. But the journey itself, and the life that happens as part of the journey, is just as worthy and valuable, and deserves as much attention as the end point does. I so easily and so often forget that. Instead I hyperfocus on getting there, tending to be frustrated by interruptions or ignoring other fun stuff happening around me.
So when my husband wants me to take a break with him and sit on the porch for a few minutes enjoying how pretty the day is, I don’t. Or I do, but I’m impatient and won’t just immerse myself in the moment
Or when my neighbor wants to stop and chat when we’re both walking our dogs, I’m impatient to get back to the walk, because I interrupted what I was trying to accomplish in order to walk the dogs to begin with! So I’m impatient to get that walk done and cut the chat short, all so I can hurry up and get back to the to-do list!
It’s ridiculous when I think about it, re-read what I just wrote. None of the stuff I’m doing is that important or typically so time sensitive that it can’t wait!
I’m trying to do better.
She said something so profound when the judges were talking with her about her condition, (obviously extremely painful, and terminal) and even more, about her joy in life.
She said, simply, “You can’t wait till Life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.”
I am so guilty of this. Not because my life is hard, but just because I tend to focus too much on goals or tasks and their completion and it’s that the sense of accomplishment I feel which is one of the things that makes me happy. But see, I forget to enjoy life in the spaces between!
Yeah, there’s satisfaction, and happiness too, in a job well done. But the journey itself, and the life that happens as part of the journey, is just as worthy and valuable, and deserves as much attention as the end point does. I so easily and so often forget that. Instead I hyperfocus on getting there, tending to be frustrated by interruptions or ignoring other fun stuff happening around me.
So when my husband wants me to take a break with him and sit on the porch for a few minutes enjoying how pretty the day is, I don’t. Or I do, but I’m impatient and won’t just immerse myself in the moment
Or when my neighbor wants to stop and chat when we’re both walking our dogs, I’m impatient to get back to the walk, because I interrupted what I was trying to accomplish in order to walk the dogs to begin with! So I’m impatient to get that walk done and cut the chat short, all so I can hurry up and get back to the to-do list!
It’s ridiculous when I think about it, re-read what I just wrote. None of the stuff I’m doing is that important or typically so time sensitive that it can’t wait!
I’m trying to do better.
