I read a quote from my dearest coach Steve Chandler, a while back: “When are you gonna stop living as if you’ll never die?”…
You know sometimes you hear something and it has so much juice in it, you get a kind of mental electroshock?
This sentence did exactly that for me.
I’m still ruminating it.
It is there in the back of my mind, nagging.
Because if I am really honest, even though I do know that my life here will stop one day (and every day brings that event closer), I do live like if I was never gonna die.
I let things go, I procrastinate, I delay decisions, I take my sweet time to do nothing and enjoy it, I dawdle and I saunter… And every now and again, Boom! The quote chimes in my head.
You see, I’m not one to get burnt out and overworked, because I have been doing mostly what I love for many years now; so much so that work doesn’t really feel like work and I have time for leisure as well.
And I would not change that.
Actually I helped clients with that, to give themselves permission to have a life other than hassling and performing and hurrying from one thing to the other.
There is nothing wrong with happy leisure.
And there is nothing wrong with refusing to be in the rat race.
But where should I draw the line between delightfully cruising through each day, and getting nothing OF VALUE done?
And by “of value” I mean some kind of quality time, or useful legacy, some kind of inspiring work to help us grow up, or to help with the world at large, or more personally, some of the things that I have kept for years in my “one day” list of what I would love to do: write a book, go to Greece, have a stand alone coaching course online, speak in front of crowds to inspire and lift them up… Paint some very large pieces again… Whatever.
These “one day I will” are never going to exist if I live as if I’ll never die.
Simple truth.
Hard truth.
So how about filling my days with more purposeful actions, meaningful, and consequential actions, some that will perdure after I’m gone, some that serve the world now, some that inspire me to grow and others by proxy…
Most of them giving me joy and a sense of accomplishment even small being paramount.
When I scroll and browse on a connected screen for hours, even if it is satisfying WHILE I do it, the lingering feeling afterwards is not that great… oops! 2 hours have passed and so many very cool things could have been lived, done, shared, learned… amindless stuff, drowning me in some kind of limbo?
All my life I have been a greedy reader.
Several books always in the process of being read were next to my bed, and I spent a great many hours immersed in them.
All kinds of books, novels, fiction, non-fiction, self-help, dietetic, unconventional medicines, mysteries, coaching, human behavior, metaphysics, whatever…
Curiously after the long Covid 19 confinement I realized that I had a very hard time getting into reading a book on a regular basis.
My focus had changed, my screen time had sky rocketed.
Was it related? Probably. Did it go away? Not really. I have to tie myself up to a book to read it cover to cover nowadays. Otherwise I abandon it somewhere… and it becomes one more project.
The bad part is that when I use my brain for more screen scrolling and less book reading I really don’t serve myself well. And I am a hard core defender of unconditional self-care, and self-love. Clash.
My actions and my values are not aligned.
So, how do we shift trajectories?
How do we flex our behaviors toward richer, more fulfilled, more thriving days?
I’m no guru and I can only talk about my experience, but it seems that a little more of what I desire and a little step in that direction every day is really helping.
Also. Associating new (or renewed) behaviors with already installed habits is a pretty good trick.
For example, I can read a chapter of a book while drinking my morning coffee to NOT start the day scrolling… Just grabbing the book first will do it.
Calling that friend who comes to my mind right away, instead of waiting a better moment, water the plant that started wilting, take a minute to breathe mindfully, or stretch, or sketch, or write, or go see the stars outside… whatever more I want in my days, whatever I’ve been skipping and delaying and putting in the future, how about just getting it done now?
One little thing at a time.
Just because I love doing them. Just because afterward the feeling is awesome.
Just because very simply, a beautiful and fulfilling life is made of beautiful fulfilling days.
One at a time.
If I take care of today… Just today… and I keep doing that, every day, doggedly, stubbornly, even when I don’t feel like it, even when circumstances are aggravating, even when my mood is not at the top, or my body aches… when I reach the end of my time here, when the sand in the hourglass is all at the bottom, I will have no regrets.
And that, I believe, is invaluable.
But for that I need to stop living as if I will never die.
To your beautiful life!
With love
Emmeline