Epiphany

So I had an epiphany the other day. Acutally it was more like a couple of weeks ago. It came about because of a trip home for the holidays that was wayy too short. Because of its extreme brevity, I had to seize every moment possible, which meant not allowing myself to be tired. I slept enough, but even after a good night of sleep I usually can't sustain a full day of activity without succumbing to some level of fatigue, for at least a couple of hours. But I couldn't allow even the briefest glimpse of tiredness to sneak its way in. I also realized that a lot of being tired is allowing yourself to be (and also comes about by negative thoughts, but more on that in another post). Anyway, the pull of friends and family made me realize that I had been wasting time being lazy, making excuses, letting life pass me by while I napped; that perhaps the cliche was correct, that we should "live in the moment." I always used to cringe when I read that on someone's facebook quotes, but it is true. I think I always doubted the sincerity of those people's facebook profiles. Facebook just strikes me as a poor medium for wisdom.

This realization (perhaps that I was prepared to assimilate a bumper sticker to my core beliefs) was compounded by a sentiment that hard work is just as key as seizing every moment, and in fact the two work well in concert. The inspiration for this piece of wisdom came from a slightly more abstract source, our President Barack Obama (I will forego the -elect part, as its only a week away, and I'd like this blog to have a timeless effect to it...) The man is where he is because he worked hard, hands down. Sure there was natural talent, but he worked damn hard. And he did so by not wasting a moment, an opportunity, to learn something new, to give it his all. I know he hasn't really done anything yet (shoot there goes the timeless effect) but he will, I don't care what the cynics say who claim "well he's still a politician..." He is, but get over it, he is different. But that is beside the point.

Idea - life is better when lived to the fullest. How do you get more out of life? By not wasting time. We don't have time to be lazy. In 50 years when we look back on our life, it will be defined by what we did, not by what we thought about doing but never got around to. Our biggest regrets will be those moments we didn't jump on, opportunities we let slip by. So - seize life. Take it. Stop making excuses. They don't matter. Just, do.