Per my post yesterday, I thought this warranted repeating: Life is best lived in the little things that make us happy.
All too often I see clients or friends getting caught up in the “big” ideas, or the big list of desires. Heck, I even do it myself still. It’s important to have those big ideas and desires, because they become the “X” on your roadmap of life. They give you some sense of direction from which you can draw your route. Without them, we’d all be wandering aimlessly. But…
But at the same time, we have to remember that the ideas and desires are ideals, and not where we are meant to live on a daily basis. Why? Because when we do, we get bogged down in the land of “should” (a rather icky sticky marshland), or marooned on the isle of “not enough” (an isolated and lonely island in the middle of a rapid river). Neither of which help us move forward on our path toward our X.
The remedy for this is, it seems, being present on the journey: To ‘be here now’ as I and others have written many times. It’s not always easy, but it makes life easier. That’s for certain. And how do we ‘be here now’ when everything around us is asking us to live in ‘ideal world’ rather than on our own map?
We live our days – our lives – in the little things that bring us joy.
Do you enjoy coffee? Or tea? Then, enjoy it. Or IN-JOY it. Sip with a smile. Do you enjoy yoga or cross-fit, or walking in the woods? Then IN-JOY it. Be in it while you’re in it, and take it all in. The breath, the sweat, the smell of fallen leaves crunching under your feet. Anything that you’re doing, you have the capacity to find joy in the moment, even if you dislike something.
When I worked in the corporate world, there were definitely moments in which I didn’t like my job. Some days would trudge on and on, but without realizing it, I would find little things that made the days better. Sometimes it was realizing that the slow pace of a day in a desk job allowed me an opportunity to read something new. Whatever it is, we can usually find something that brings us joy, we just have to look for it… or create it.
That’s what it means to live in the little moments. And the beautiful thing about this is that when one moment is done, there’s sure to be another soon after when you live this way. You become the cruise director and captain of your own ship, and nothing feels better than that. All the advertising in the world that tells you what you “should” be doing simply won’t influence you anymore. You’ll get to choose what to listen to and explore (or even buy), in your own time, and based on your own mind. How cool is that?
In the end, we are all on a journey toward our giant X on a map. The two questions that matter are:
- What is your X? (the one you defined, not somebody else) and
- What are you doing with your time as you journey toward it?
Happy wandering! xo