Go Slow To Make The Most Of Your Life
Kristyn Meyer is on a journey to make herself the best human that she can be. These posts are a reflection of that. She welcomes your support via reading and through commissioned affiliate links within her posts! To stay up to date on all of her shenanigans, please subscribe to her email list! (psst…there’s a free gift involved)
A while back, I was laying in bed perusing the world of social media before drifting off. I came across this heartbreaking article that a friend of mine posted. In it a dad pleads with parents to put their family before their jobs. He does this because he, a self-proclaimed workaholic, recently lost his eight year old son after the child passed away in his sleep. Even worse, he found out about it seconds after voicing to his coworkers that he couldn’t even remember the last time he actually took a full week of vacation.
He was just too busy to go slow.
This has remained in my head for so long. Primarily because as humans, we are trained to go, go, go. Anything less is being a slacker or not doing enough. However, many are actually just trying to enjoy this life that they are given in a quality way.
They are trying to go slow.
When you think about it, there is so much beauty to be had in just taking the time to enjoy what you have been given. Pushing everything else to the side and just focusing on the here and now, the present, the things that are right in front of you. All of that is a gift that we aren’t often afforded. Life often finds us in a tizzy and going from Point A to Point B at 90 miles per hour. The ability to just be is a luxury many don’t have, or don’t have often.
I think often to the time (hopefully far in the future) that I find myself on my deathbed.
What will I be proud of?
Will I be sad about some things?
What will I regret?
Personally, I do not want any feelings of remorse when that time comes. I want to have the career that I’ve dreamed of, the family that I prayed for and the experiences that I’ve lusted after.
When I think of those things that I want so badly, I want all of them and I want them now! I don’t want to wait. But I have to be cognizant and realistic that I am not going to achieve them all immediately, in a quality way.
Just how am I going to have the family that I’ve dreamed of if I am working 60 hours a week? How will I enjoy any of the experiences I set out to do when I’m worried about the direction of my business every second of the day, unable to focus on anything else?
I won’t be able to. Bottom line. It just won’t be able to happen.
The world as a whole, and most definitely me, need to remember not to rush life. Life isn’t anything to take for granted, but it’s also not something to sprint through. As we all know, tomorrow is not guaranteed. But what would happen if, despite popular belief, we decided to live like it is guaranteed instead of not? Can you imagine the change in mindset that we would have if we flipped that mentality? What if we lived with the confident assumption that our plans will play out as we desire, and not as if we are in a rush to accomplish everything and prove ourselves right out of the gate?
By the same token, if we can successfully accomplish this thought switch, it will afford us the ability to focus on and be present with our current priority at that time. Moreover, it will give us freed mental capacity to place importance on other things. Multi-tasking in a non-quality way would be less prevalent in our lives. After all, time is a gift and should be treated as such.
Unfortunately, that mindset isn’t in play throughout the world. That’s not to say that we can’t actively make an effort to practice it though. And in the light of current circumstances, we are actually being forced to put it into play.
When you are on vacation – BE ON VACATION. Put away your emails.
If you are playing with your kids – PLAY WITH YOUR KIDS. Stress about your work obligations later.
When you are skydiving – PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, FOCUS ON SKYDIVING!
Given these points, if you do, heaven forbid, find yourself on your deathbed tomorrow – wouldn’t you find solace in the fact that you put your heart 100% into everything as it came? That you engaged fully in making memories with those you loved? And even more so that your legacy is going to be built on quality actions instead of harried, stressful ones?
Go slow. Live life. Live it like tomorrow is guaranteed. Turn off the phone, schedule the vacation, snuggle your babies. Make the memories.
