Ever notice how euphoric a dog looks riding with its head out of the window?
Can I admit something? The other day while I was driving, I glanced over and saw a dog hanging out of the window. The dog looked so happy and peaceful as the wind tousled its hairy face. For a split second, I felt jealous! I tried to remember the last time I felt completely carefree.
As a natural planner, my thoughts are often focused on the future. How can I become better at X? What can I do to achieve Y? I am always setting goals and working towards something. Always setting personal challenges. Always doing something for my future self.
We were raised this way. It started with a simple question like, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” After that, we began living for the future. What college did we want to go to? Where did we want to work after we graduated? When were we getting married? When were we having kids? Are we saving for retirement? Where do we see ourselves in 5 years? 10 years? After a while, it starts to feel like everything in our lives is about some future event.
Can we hold on for just one second? What about today? What about this exact moment?
With the busyness of life, sometimes we fail to just pause for a minute and enjoy exactly where we are right now. We forget to live in the present.
This week, my challenge to you is to make time to be completely in the moment. Fully engage in the world around you. Try to find something that you did not notice before. Who’s around you? What do you smell? What do you hear? What do you appreciate about where you are right now?
Life requires planning. It helps us to become better people. But in our quest to become better, let us also take the time to stick our heads out the window and enjoy the breeze. Let’s soak in the sunshine and let the wind tousle our faces. There will never be another moment exactly like this one. Live in it!
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