I was looking at some old photographs the other day, marvelling at how amazing I looked back in the day. Stephen and I had just got engaged, my hair was long and thick, my face was glowing and unlined, and I was pretty thin too. More than that – I was happy, and it showed! The thing is – I remember all too well being that person, and that person didn’t think she looked good at all. I remember planning how much weight I would lose for my wedding, and how I wanted my hair to grow even longer, and how I was going to get rid of the very faint freckles on my face so that I looked PERFECT.
And yes, I did all of those things (except for the stubborn freckles), and my wedding day was phenomenal. But I look back now at that girl who was 15 years younger than I am now and wonder, “Why didn’t I realise how amazing I already looked? Why didn’t I appreciate it back then – before the wrinkles and stray grey hairs and pigmentation marks started their slow and steady march across my face?”
Which then got me to thinking – why is it that we live our lives always thinking about the WHEN I’s?
- When I lose 10kgs, I will …
- When I earn more money, I’m totally going to …
- When I have more time, I can’t wait to …
- When the kids are older/ sleeping through the night/ done with homework, I’ll definitely …
- When I’m not so busy, then I’ll finally get round to …
It’s always WHEN I. Or ONE DAY. Or FIRST I HAVE TO. Always tomorrow – another day – sometime in the future. We use that phrase as a way to pacify ourselves that even though things may not be so great now, they will be ONE DAY, and so we let ourselves off the hook.
Don’t get me wrong, I know firsthand the importance of setting goals or we end up merely taking another step on the treadmill we have come to call our day-to-day existence. But setting goals is very different from how so many of us don’t take the time to value what we have right now. To stop and appreciate it. To enjoy the moments that are all woven into a lifetime of happy memories. How tragic if we only realise later on in life how happy and content we should have been today.
For me, the challenge is that I’m so hung up on “being productive”, that if I’m not moving at full speed and multitasking at least three things at a time, then I start to feel guilty. I used to sleep like the dead, but now find that I battle to get back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night, because my brain says, “Oh good, you’re up. I want to chat to remind you about those two writing deadlines for tomorrow. And the fact that you haven’t had a mammogram this year. Also, you forgot to return your mother’s call, and it was your brother-in-law’s birthday last week. The crime rate in your neighbourhood is on the up, so you might want to panic about that. You also haven’t spoken to your sister in a few days – maybe because she is mad at you? It might be worthwhile analysing every interaction you’ve had with her over the past three weeks to see if there’s anything you need to apologise for. Oh, and you have an early morning meeting so need to worry about the fact that YOU ARE NOT SLEEPING.”
As you know, getting off Facebook was a big thing for me earlier this year, because it freed up so much of my time and headspace. And while I am sporadically on Facebook again, I seldom check it more than once a day and refuse to have it on my phone (I’m an addict, Seriously. I check it at traffic lights.) I have also made a very conscious decision to be more “present” when at home, instead of trying to do three things at once, something that remains an enormous challenge. Because the truth of the matter is this: by being so hung up on Getting Stuff Done, I end up Missing Out On Stuff. I plan shopping lists half way through Kayla’s torturously long interesting stories, I keep checking the clock while playing “House” with Bella, and watch Masterchef with one eye while Stephen is telling me about his latest fitness idea. I multitask ALL THE TIME – and yet it’s these very moments that I’m going to look back on one day and miss terribly.
So what’s the answer? I’m not entirely sure – because at the end of the day, A Simpler Life is all about balance. We multitask to speed things up SO THAT we can be more “present” during the important parts of our day. Except that for many of us, we never truly prioritise those moments and multitask right past them until we fall into bed each night.
Personally, something that has helped me the most on my journey is to STFD (Slow The F*ck Down). Seriously. Slow down for long enough to watch your child playing in the bath, to see their facial expressions as they tell you a story, and to be thankful for the food that you are eating. Slow down for long enough to think about the day you’ve just had and be grateful for the moments when you laughed out loud, when you received an unexpected message from a friend, and when your child’s face lit up when they saw you walk in the door. Stop eating lunch at your desk and instead use that time to sit in the sun or catch up with a friend or read a book. Put down your phone when someone talks to you – actually PUT IT DOWN – and realise that these moments won’t last forever. Children grow up and leave home, friends move to other countries, sometimes there is money left over for holidays and treats, and sometimes there isn’t. Things come and go in our lives – and PEOPLE come and go in our lives, so surely we need to take the time to look at each blessing that comes our way, acknowledge it and be grateful for it. Instead of rushing off to the next thing, imagining all the things we will get to do “one day”, and ignoring what is right in front of us right now.
As the very brilliant Glennon Doyle Melton says in her article, “Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt“, “Today I shall keep my perspectacles super-glued to my face and feel insanely GRATEFUL instead of LACKING and I will look at my home and my people and my body and say: THANK YOU. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. THIS IS ALL MORE THAN GOOD ENOUGH, ALL OF IT. Now. Let us turn our focus onward and outward. There is WORK TO BE DONE and JOY TO BE HAD.”
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