It’s a busy world around us, and sometimes we get lost in the madness of getting things done.
I’ve been there a time or two and once you are sucked deep within it can be difficult to recognise exactly where you are. I mean where you really are mentally and emotionally — not physically. There always seems to be something else to do; and most of that is for other people. For your boss, your partner, your children just generally everyone else. And yes, there are always reasons for it all (almost everything) we do — except for the brain fades. We seem to be able to justify why we do what we do and these justifications always make perfect sense.
For me I’d find myself putting off doing some activity that I enjoyed because it didn’t benefit anybody else it seemed selfish and a little bit frivolous. Indulgent too — like sitting in the sunshine reading a novel. I would feel that I was just wasting time. Never thinking about just recharging my batteries, which is vital to our well-being.
Having perfectionist tendencies makes it difficult to take time out when the dishes need doing or there are cobwebs hanging in the corner!
Last night I attended a class that I’ve been taking for a while, where we delve deep into how we operate. But instead of getting our books out there was a special surprise. They’d brought in two people to teach us Jamaican dance. Mind, I use the word teach very loosely here. We were shown a move, practiced it, and then added another move to that until it sort of resembled a dance. It took a while and we all got very hot and sweaty, but it was fun. Enormous fun with lots of laughter at our silly mistakes. When we finished, we were all feeling good — from the exertion, the laughter and I suppose just because we all got out of our comfort zones.
We don’t like getting out of our comfort zones, so we avoid anything that might take us there like the plague. But once you actually do something like that group activity, where everyone is in the same boat your attitude changes. After a while it doesn’t seem to matter that you probably look stupid, because everyone else is looking the same. And then you find that you’ve had fun — lots of it and it feels good.
I think we all need to take time to have fun — some laughter, be a little bit silly and enjoy ourselves. Life is serious and all too often we regret not having spent more time with loved ones who are gone. Seize the moments whenever you can, because you surely wont regret them later.
