Blog: Capture the Moments of Life

Olympic Stadium Beijing~Family wanted his picture with the "blonde"

The moments of life speed by and at some age, seem to gain momentum.  Some days gain the momentum of a downhill slide, careening out of control.  Today was another one of those days and after a day that stretched too long, I got home and spent an hour playing with my dogs in the back yard. Watching the sunset, I found myself letting go and forgetting the day.  I had not even taken the  time to change out of my work clothes and running around the yard barefoot, laughing at the playful antics of my dogs, I didn’t care.  I grabbed my camera, laid in the grass taking pictures of the dogs with an amazing sunset in the background, and forgot I was still dressed up. 

Most days I spend listening, coaching, counseling, and sometimes challenging people who want to make changes but don’t always want to have to make those changes.  I am passionate about my work and  grateful I get to do it.  I am lucky to be a part of the process as people experience amazing life changes.  However as much as I love what I do, by the end of the day I feel as though I need refuge. I live in a world where every part of it has grabbed for a chunk of me my energy and spirit is often drained.

Taking pictures of the sunset, playing silly games with my dogs, I forget everything else, my brain slows down and I lose my edge.  I couldn’t tell you what my list has on it and what I should be doing.  I simply smile, laugh and play and feel love as they unselfishly give to me with their own natural ability to be in the moment with me.  

Embracing the moment is challenging for me, and it does not come natural.  Often as I race through my days I check myself realizing I am not in my moment, I spend a lot of time fast forwarding or reviewing the tapes from the last game. It’s a little dance I play in my overloaded life, this mental tug of war. Experiencing the moment and tugging myself back to it again and again.

Last week  I tucked in tight on my bike and allowed gravity and a hill to do what it does. I watched my speedometer hit 35 mph and felt the amazing thrill of the moment.  There are times when the moment is so powerful it is impossible to go elsewhere.  Freefalling at 120 mph, in those moments before you pull for your chute, the moment cannot be ignored. Jumping off a platform attached by a rubber band, feeling the thrill of weightlessness in space. Those experiences are too strong to allow the moment to escape and those experiences make being in the moment easy. But what about the moments every day.  Last night laying in grass playing with my dogs and feeling filled by the beauty of my surroundings and my experience, I remembered the most important truth.

This moment will never come again and I have lived long enough experienced life enough to know the moments can be gone in an instant.  I get  this one section of time and when I am in the past or future moments I am cheating myself and also honest enough to admit often trying to escape myself.  In the pain of self-expectation I destroy the chance to do what I am truly supposed to be doing which is to just be.

Although it likely was not intended as a statement of self reflection Nelson Mandela once said  “If you want to make peace with your enemy,
you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.”   When I read this I think of the enemy as myself.  It is my expectations, my fear, my ability to hover over the timeline of my life with a magnifier, second guessing and predicting. My enemy is the judgmental critic  with anger and blame, fear and shame, and a need to push beyond what I would expect of anyone else.  It is the place in me that guards against vulnerability, demanding adherence to a standard I have not yet found the author of.

A few days ago, someone said to me “You are so stubborn”.  It was not meant  as a compliment.  My immediate response was “So what? It’s one of my best traits”. 

It is also my enemy at times, and just as all of carry our greatest strengths in the same hand we carry our greatest weakness. I accept that I will never be satisfied on a large scale and not only do I accept this, I embrace it.  In satisfaction I find complacency which is dangerous.  I am reminded while running in the grass with my dogs or feeling the wind in my face downhill, that fulfillment is a different thing.  It is lasting and but only found in the moment.   In my moments of love and laughter, tears, beauty and life I am grateful for being able to embrace the moment.