I’m grateful often but recently I got to thinking even deeper.
What if things went wrong?
I was nervous going into surgery in early November. Of course, there was an extremely high probability of success with a septoplasty procedure but I allowed myself to think of the alternative leading up to it.
Life is so fucking weird.
We have these aspirations and goals for the future and are excited to build toward them and cross the finish line.
Then, we do, and we aren’t happy? Why is that?
How do you feel after doing the thing you wanted to do?
Energized
Enlightened
Encouraged
Exhausted
We can get caught in the hustle of daily life with the expectation that it’s supposed to be better.
Gratitude is one of the lifeboats we can drop into the water when we feel like we are drowning. When we feel like we are in over our heads.
Because as much as we may struggle, deal with pain, or battle our inner demons, we have to recognize that this has been common throughout human civilization.
At the moment, we feel like this is going to last forever.
We’ll have more opportunities, like this one, to do it again.
Things end far too abruptly but the worst pain is the slow-burning kind.
There will be a last time for everything.
The last time talking to my brother.
The last time picking up my son.
The last time seeing a sunset.
A last round of golf.
It’s hard not to be a “prisoner of the moment.”
We uncover neat experiences.
We discover new opportunities
We are wowed by new people.
Unfortunately, one of the more difficult things in life is to accept that these don’t always last.
Things that are free are mostly taken for granted.
Our mind.
Our body.
Our relationships.
We only realize how important they are when they get taken from us.
Until we can no longer have them in the same capacity as before.
Sometimes the most priceless things in the world don’t cost a thing.
I was nervous and excited to hit “launch” on Episode 1 of the Just Get Started Podcast 5 years ago in 2017.
Today, I cringe a bit listening back to that first episode.
So many things I’ve learned in those 5 years.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words but it’s also worth a time stamp. It’s an imprinted memory with a date circled.
It gives us a wormhole, of sorts, to the past.
Life ebbs and flows. Some days we are on the highest of highs and others it’s the lowest of the lows.