A New(ish) Outlook on Life
My new matra for life is: “Live. Love. Laugh. Cry. C’est la vie.”
Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve never been one to just up and follow the crowd without having a good reason to do so. And for the most part I’ve always been a pretty laid back guy, rarely getting fired up over whatever it is that the masses are clamoring to and ranting about (unless of course it’s football, which is another story). I’ve always been one to try new things and to offer up a good laugh by throwing in a one-liner here and there. I may not be the type to wear my emotions on my sleeve, but I am man enough to cry when needed and will do my best to comfort family & friends in their time of need (and please don’t slug me if I try to make you laugh during the hard times).
That said, after having lost two children, my perspective on life has changed a bit. Not in the sense that who I am has changed, but in the sense that my perspective on the timing of life has changed.
What I’ve always heard, but was just not very clear until now, is that we’re not promised today, let alone tomorrow. I have dreams and goals. There are things that I want to do before my time on earth is through. Things that in my mind I have plenty of time to do before I go. But the truth be told, there’s a chance that I might not be here an hour from now.
All of that to say, my approach to life is to get out there and run with it while I still can. If there’s something that I’m putting off until I reach a certain point, until I have a certain amount of money, until my children are a certain age, etc., then, God willing, I’m going to do my best to achieve those things sooner rather than later.
And recently that has started to be put into action.
I’ve been traveling more lately, even if the locales are not foreign to me. Next on my list is to get a passport and find somewhere to go that we can afford (one of my sons wants to go to Mexico, so maybe that will be it).
And the biggest leap of faith that I’ve taken recently is signing a lease agreement for office space for my businesses. To be completely honest, that scares me a bit given the nature of my business(es), and rightfully so. And I may be just a little too laid back to recognize the enormity of that…luckily I have a better half to help me watch over that. But I’m locked in to at least try it out for a year. If it ends up looking like it’s not going to work out in the long run, so be it, but at least I tried and will have learned something from it. But if it works out, I’ll be ecstatic. As the saying goes, “it’s better to have tried and failed than to not have tried at all.”
August 22nd, 2010 at 1:25 pm
As I read your post my mind drifted (it often does) to a recent pick-up game of “21″ at BD high with a gaggle of young teen men. One of the young gentlemen asked, “hey old school howyadoin?” I replied “livin’ the dream”. He followed with, “Man, how you doin’ that at your age?” I replied “Lowered expectations.” I’ve always asked myself open-ended questions regarding any plan of action. How will this action help me reach my long term goals? or What are the consequences …etc. Now I ask myself a simpler closed-in question. Will this make me happy? The happy factor. I expect and try to do my best to be happy. Reading your post I knew I had the perspective of experience (that’s boomer for old)to offer insights someone younger could not possibly understand. Then I read the second paragraph. I stand humbly corrected. It is I who do not have the perspective of your loss. I wonder at you and you better half’s strength to learn and grow. Good for you. Thanks for the lesson. BTW my lovely wife and I love Mexico.