Day 4 of Being the Person-Time to Live

Yesterday I wrote about my change of perspective.  The change that took me from a gloomy outlook on life.  The change that finally brought peace to my heart.  Maybe that’s what I meant to articulate yesterday.  The peace.

Please don’t mistake my perspective change for being naïve about the world and social issues.  Come on, folks, I’m a social worker.  The world isn’t one happy ray of sunshine.

I am still allowed to live my life with a positive outlook.  We all are. 

And really, when you think of meeting someone (such as a friendly social worker) at the worst moment in your life, wouldn’t you rather be given hope than gloom?  Hope doesn’t need to be based on some fantasy about life.  Hope can be based in reality. 

The reality of a better life.  The reality of a life well-lived.

 All of us get to determine what that means, a life well-lived.  That’s the point of my 31 Days, to explore what that means to me.

Sometimes I read something that stands out.  It rolls around in the brain.  It’s not all random movie quotes up there.

You know how sometimes we can get caught up in the concept of time.  I wish I had more time for this or that.  Let me give you a couple of personal examples, “I wish I had enough time to learn how to quilt,” “I wish I had enough time to run,” “I wish I had enough time to work on craft projects with my girls.” The list could go on. 

But does having that extra time really enrich my life?

What I read from Ann Voskamp (and I’m paraphrasing because I am probably misquoting here), is something like this:

I want enough time for living the life I want to live

Yes, this sums it up.  On Day 1 of this series, I mentioned how “being the person” isn’t about the laundry list of things I want to do.  It is about those qualities I want to nurture in myself.

And this concept of time, well, it’s not about completing a list of to-dos.  It’s about figuring out how I want to live my life and spending my time on that.

Do I still want to cook and bake more?  Of course.  Do I still want to learn how to quilt?  Yes, well, maybe.  Do I still want to do a host of other things?  Yes.  But life isn’t defined by marking to-dos off a list.

It’s about living.

 

This post is part of my series:

 To start from the beginning, please visit this page for a full listing.