Unusual Channel
Go ahead smell the roses
For the past weeks I have been up to my neck, forehead is more like it, with being busy of just about a lot of things to do; household chores to finish, kids and all; documents to read; computer work and a lot other activities that a day seems to be of lack. I guess it speaks so much of why I haven't really sat down and wrote something for my column for the past weeks. Not even to open my emails with a whooping number of sent messages up to almost a thousand. However, last weekend I got the chance to open them and came across this email sent by a friend. Thanks, George!
This email made me realize something and I would like to share it with you. Once again, these realizations made me stop and "smell the roses". A lesson learned well that to pass this on to you readers to ponder on too is my way of agreeing to my own important realization... "life is too short"...
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Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine. I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.
How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word "refrigeration" mean nothing to you?
How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Desperate Housewives' on television?
I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, "How about going to lunch in a half hour?" She would gas up and stammer, "I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, it looks like rain." And my personal favorite: "It's Monday." She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.
Because we cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!
We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get our toddler toilet-trained.
We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet.
We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of school.
Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to our selves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of "I'm going to," "I plan on," and "Someday, when things are settled down a bit."
When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.
My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.
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Now... go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to... not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand why I sent this to you.
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Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask "How are you?" do you hear the reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Have you ever told your child, "We'll do it tomorrow", and in your haste, not see his sorrow? Have you ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Not too late to just call and say "Hi"?
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When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift... Thrown away.... Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.
"When you learn not to want things so badly, life comes to you."