Sometimes the topics for my Blogs come to me while I'm sitting in my kitchen enjoying the quiet, still hours of the early morning, and some times they come to me as I'm running on my treadmill trying not to die. That was the case this morning.
Generally while I'm running I try to listen to some upbeat music that has a good running pace. However this morning I was not feeling overly inspired to do my morning workout so I decided to listen to some Motivational Speeches. As I was running a track came on titled "One Day It Will Be Over". In that track I recognized a quote from Irish Poet and Playwright Oscar Wilde and it said "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all". What stuck with me about that quote was the unfortunate truth of it.
We as a society are so caught up in the day to day workings of life that we are merely existing, and we don't give any thought to whether we are truly living. We are swept up in busy schedules, rush hour commutes, appointments, meetings, after school itineraries, and social get togethers with people we don't really want to spend time with. Through it all we seem to be so busy making a living, that we aren't making a life.
As I was thinking about all of this I remembered another Poem that I had read by Linda Ellis that was entitled "The Dash". I thought about the many times over the years as a child that I had been carted off with my grandmother to a local cemetery where much of my grandmothers family was buried. There we would weed the plots, clean off the headstones, and plant fresh flowers. All those years of being there and sitting with those stones I had never really thought about the Dashes. I would look at the year they were born, and the year that they died, but as a child I never really gave much consideration into what that Dash represented.
Now as I sit here four decades older, I realize that the importance isn't either of those dates but the Dash in between. What kind of a life was lived between those two dates. Was it a life of unending work, and struggle or was it a life filled with joy, happiness, love and adventure? Did they live their best Dash?
So what about you? Are you so caught up in this rat race called life that you aren't taking time to slow down and appreciate the beauty in the world that is around you? No one on their deathbed every bemoans the fact that they wish they had gone to one more meeting, sent one more email, or scrolled for ten more minutes on Facebook. They will however mourn the lost opportunities to sit with those they loved, even in silence. They will wish for five more minutes with someone who has already passed before them. They will regret missed adventures. They will wish that they had enjoyed more walks in nature, and had been brave enough to stretch out of their comfort zone and do the things that scared them.
This my friends is your time to decide what you want that Dash to represent for you. This is your opportunity to not only make a living, but to step out into this crazy world, and make a life that you will look back on, smile at and know that you have Live Your Best Dash.