Imagine If You Lived Your Life

Author: vicque fassinger
Category: Carpe Diem

Imagine if you lived your life AS IF everything you did, everything you said, or everything you experienced was the LAST time you would do it, say it, or experience it.

Imagine if when you got in your car to drive through the Metroparks on a beautiful, breezy, sun-splashed, spring afternoon, it would be the last time that you would ever drive through that parkway again. Do you suppose you would notice the leaves on the trees dancing with the wind more? Do you think you’d pull over and nap beneath the shade of a whispering Willow or a mighty Maple? Do you think you’d run barefoot? Do you think you’d take the time to watch an ant climb the blades of grass? Or, would you text while you were driving through the park and miss seeing the deer grazing in the opening of the trees? Would you be chattering on the phone so much that you’d speed right past the patch of wildflowers on the side of the road? If that was the last time you ever drove a car through the Metroparks, would you remember what that experience felt like? Smelled like? Sounded like?

What if your dog were with you? What if that drive through the Metroparks was the last time your dog would be at your side in your car? Would you take the time to go for a hike through the woods with him? Would you take the time to play fetch with him? Would you be patient enough to let him smell all the wondrous scents from the park or would you pull and tug at his lead and demand that he walk faster?

What if when you stood at the kitchen sink to wash the evening’s dishes it was the last time you would ever stand at the kitchen sink to wash the evening’s dishes? What if you would no longer be able to stand there and watch the birds and squirrels just outside the kitchen window? What if you would never again be able to stand there and reminisce about how each dish and each glass came to be a part of your dinnerware? Maybe the dish set you now have used to be your grandparents’ dishes and you remember using them when you’d visit your grandparents in Delray Beach, Florida. Now here those same dishes were in your sink, in your hands, in your thoughts. Maybe the glass you used to drink your pop or milk was a gift years ago from your first nephew. When you wash the dishes, do you think about being in that moment, or are you distracted by anxiouslly wanting to be in the next moment?

What if when you mowed the lawn, watered the flowers, or BBQ’d in your backyard it would be the last time you did those things?

What if you made the decision to live EACH MOMENT of EACH DAY exactly and wholeheartedly IN THAT MOMENT? What if you never again allowed yourself to be distracted by something else, that you weren’t multi-tasking, that you weren’t in a hurry? What if you lived your life AS IF everything you did, everything you said, or everything you experienced was the last times you would do those things, says those words, or experience those moments?

In case no one ever told you, in case no one ever showed you, and in case you never figured it out for yourself, life is truly, ultimately, utterly about being IN THE MOMENT – being concentrated, focused, and one in the moment.

Now go – and visit your grandpa, rub your dog’s belly, share quality time with the children in your life, watch a game with your dad, be barefoot, nap beneath a tree, hug your mom, get on your knees and thank God for all your gifts and all your blessings and all the miracles He has bestowed on your life and all the miracles He is about to give you.

And, oh yeah, go for a ride through the Metroparks with Fido.