Everyone has heard the expression, “you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone” right? Heck, many of us have lived it more times than we care to recount to ourselves and others. Well, in my opinion if you muttered this phrase to yourself then you have gone through life with more than a few regrets.
However, this entry is not about regrets; it’s about living IN THE MOMENT. Trying hard to appreciate life as it happens to you, because whether you like it, or not once that moment passes, it’s gone forever, alive only in your memory. Recently, I was lucky enough to experience one of those wonderful moments, well actually it was closer to a whole day. It wasn’t perfect mind you, as I capsized the sailboat multiple times and as usual my mouth “wrote a few checks my body just couldn’t cash.” Those missteps aside, it truly was a great day at the beach.
One of the great constant joys in my life has been “The Beach” (not that awful Leonardo DiCaprio movie) but that geological landform along the shoreline of an ocean, sea or sometimes even large lake. I grew up a stone’s throw from the beach in New Jersey, USA. Summers there were idyllic and make up the majority of the moments I treasure from my childhood. Right now, the beach I am referring to is along the Persian Gulf (sorry, ARABIAN Gulf apparently they can’t seem to agree on that either). Down by our compound’s yacht club (using the term loosely).
We were lucky enough to settle in with a real party planning crew who thought of and planned for just about every contingency imaginable. When I say EVERYTHING you could have ever wanted or needed was there for this picnic, I am not kidding… Picture a Williams-Sonoma, Toys R Us and Chili’s all rolled up into one. Being the slackers we are, we brought… hummus. (This actually might have been considered original in the WASPy circles we used to travel in back home, but in this neck of the wood is the very definition of passé.)
It was a day of food, folks and fun-celebrating each other’s company and just living life. Let me say that again because it’s important-JUST LIVING LIFE. Not a second of that day on the beach was spent worrying about tomorrow, fretting over yesterday; it spent just enjoying the moment for all it’s worth. One of the few things I learned at my last job (more on that in the future) was from their corporate cultural training. It was very extensive and actually worked. It was a multi-day course that could basically be boiled-down to one phrase-“Be Here Now.” It’s a great way to live your life. I see people around me do it each and every day with the greatest of ease, and boy are they blessed.
It’s these new friends that I want to stop and thank. (They know who they are, I guess I could “change the names to protect the innocent” or in this case the very guilty). Albert Schweitzer, the famous medical missionary in Africa once said, “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” Many of the people I have met here “on camp” have lit flames in me already-to be a better father, to be a better husband, to be a better friend, to be a better athlete, to be a better professional, to be a better person. Already, I owe them a lot.
Most of us can’t help but take things for granted, especially the people closest to us. We assume that good times will roll on and on and that people will never leave us. It’s an assumption that causes us to devalue the people we hold so dear. Eventually, sometimes for specific reasons or just because of relationship “drift” they slip away. It could be a quick, easy departure or a long, slow agonizing divorce that poisons everything between you. Regardless of which it is, when they do leave you'll realize that you wished that you valued them every second they were with you.
Live in the moment as much as possible and hold dear to you the people that matter most. I promise you will be happier. I know I am.
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