“T.G.I.F.”
“I can’t wait for the weekend/my next vacation/my new promotion…”
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
When we’re praying for Friday to come quickly on Monday morning, waiting for the weekend or our next getaway/promotion, etc. we’re missing out.
Now don’t get me wrong. I love my time with friends and family on the weekend. And especially at this time of year – with what’s predicted to be another ‘Polar’ Vortex’ kinda winter (ouch!) – a trip to a sunny beach somewhere can be exactly what we need to unwind. Buuuuut, when we make future events the be-all and end-all of our enjoyment, we’re not tuning into the present moment.
Now before you think I’m gonna get all Eckhart Tolle/Oprah Winfrey on you and tell you that ‘there’s no time like the present’, I want to be clear: I’m not trying to repeat what everyone is saying in the exact same way. There’s definitely a lot of truth to what has now become cliche – the idea that you have to savour the moment, the now, the present. And a cliche is a cliche because there’s truth behind it and it’s probably a valuable message. The problem is though, when we hear the same stuff over and over, we tend to discard it. It becomes so repetitious that it becomes diluted. It loses its meaning.
So let’s break it down differently, shall we?
If we’re always waiting for Friday night and the weekend, that means that we’re looking forward to only about 2 out of 7 days a week. So we have a night out on Friday (just ‘cuz it’s Friday), we enjoy Saturday and Saturday night, we sleep in on Sunday morning and by Sunday afternoon, are likely worrying about the next week and what needs to get done. Even if we count that as 2 complete days, that’s about 8 days out of 30 that we’re ‘livin’ it up’.
So now we’re waiting for good-ole vacation time. So whatdya got – 3 weeks of vacation? So we’re looking forward to 3 out of 52 weeks in the year. When we add up the weekends and 15 days of vacation, we’re at a grand total of 111 days out of 365. That’s 30% of the year that we’re enjoying life. (Insert sad trombone here).
That’s no way to live. I mean really live – not just survive or get by.
So now we’re waiting for our next big moment or we tell ourselves that we’ll be happy when we:
- Land that new job/promotion/gig
- Buy that new house
- Snag that special someone
- Move to that new city
- Lose X pounds
- Are able to run X km’s without skipping a beat, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera
We find more ways to delay our pleasure in the day-to-day and decide that when something specific happens in the future, then we’ll be happy.
So Friday/the weekend/our vacation/promotion/move happens and they don’t last forever. Friday night will always come and go. The vacation has to end sometime. The promotion/move/new house is only new for so long. Eventually these things also become part of the norm. The novelty wears off. And what’s left?
What’s left is our choice.
It’s our choice to wake up on Monday morning and make it as awesome as Friday and say, “hey, I woke up this morning. I have a roof over my head, food in the fridge and clothes to wear”.
It’s our choice to lift our chin and say, “I got this, there’s a solution”, when shit hits the fan on Tuesday and we have to clean up the mess.
It’s our choice to shut off and put our cellphone away on Wednesday and say, “I’m listening and I care”, when we’re having dinner with someone we love.
It’s our choice to devour a good book on Thursday night instead of tanking ourselves in front of the TV after work to unwind.
It’s our choice to say that we decide to either move blindly through our lives and continue waiting or decide that we deserve to live 100% of the time and start now.
So what are you waiting for?
Much love XXX
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