Is your (average daily) life just a bowl of cherries? Or is it more like just the pits? You are only as rich as your daily life. You are only as successful as your daily life. You are only as happy as your daily life. Do you seek mountain-top experiences? Then you must learn how to reach the mountain top within and then the whole of your daily like is a mountain top experience.
Yesterday my daughter asked me what I was looking forward to most on our upcoming visit to Australia next month (going for a family wedding). I had to pause. My mind was blank. Though I am really excited and delighted by this upcoming trip I realized my focus has inexorably shifted toward “being here now” and the joy and peace of my daily life. I did an exersize several years ago during my Voice for Love ministerial program which centered on imagining and thus creating (on paper to begin with) your perfect, average day (i.e. what does your perfect daily life look and feel like? Who do you spend time with? Where are you living? What do you eat? What does your home look like?). What I loved about this exercise is the fact that it immediately became clear that some of my highlight experiences would fall flat (or at least I would fall flat in overwhelm) if done daily.
Andy Warhol’s take on Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee
I mean, would I really want to have tea with the Queen every day? The anticipation and preparation aside, who wants to be expected to wear a hat and keep your curtsy up to date every day? (Sadly my hat sent by my mother express delivery from the USA was detained at the base entrance due to heightened security during Queen’s visit to RMC Duntroon in Australia.) Walking the Great Wall of China was a magnificent experience (albeit bitterly cold) but I don’t really want to live close enough to walk it every day. I could do this for a week or a meditative month but it’s too far away from the daily contact of my favorite peeps. Of course having our darling daughters always appears at the top of my “life highlights” because nothing can compare to greeting a new precious soul, fresh from Heaven into your hearts. But trust me, I absolutely cannot do this every day in my perfect daily life.
I have sought (since this exersize and program) to notice, welcome and embrace my daily life. To change or recreate the parts that no longer serve me or bring me joy or to learn to be utterly at ease and peace with the parts that are immutable. I am indeed looking forward to joining in the hubbub of joy at the wedding, having tea with old army friends and hugging each family member while we catch up on all the news. But my daily life is perfect today. Right now. Not it-will-be-great-next-month, but right now, this morning, as I type.
The power within you knows what it wants to do.
Take a moment, would you, to imagine your perfect daily life. Are you living in the city (or country) you want to live in? Are you with the people you want most to be with? Is your health where (or on the way) you feel most alive and comfortable? Is your house/bedroom/ lunch box pleasing, delightful and a thing of joy and beauty? Do you enjoy a daily practice of faith and stillness? Can you notice, welcome and celebrate your true self?
Dear One, You are always you every day. Be willing to enter the Stillness that is your precious heart and ASK:
What would my perfect average day look like, feel like, smell like and be like?
Allow an image to form. See it. Feel it. Trust it.
Know I am always with you, you need but ASK to move into what is already precious: your daily life.
This is a delightful post. Hearkening back to when we were children of our parents not letting us eat all of whatever the treat du jour was or we would make ourselves sick.
I know how most of my perfect day is spent. However, due to life happening, that is delayed for several years. What it does do, is make one think about how one is spending the here and now so that maximum bang for buck is achieved, without the end result being ‘enduring the time’.
I think really dwelling int he here-and-now IS our getting maximum bang for our buck. Thinking of the “perfect average day” really opened my eyes to glory and peace AVERAGE……..(it is still a struggle to limit myself in the “treat du jour” department;) xo
Wow, this really makes you sit and think. We all keep reaching as if great isn’t good enough, but what if we’re in the midst of our happiness and just can’t see it.
“In the Midst of My Happiness” would be a great title for a memoir! I had the thought one day, many years ago “What if I was already in Heaven but I just didn’t know it??!!” It really gave my pause to notice what was right in front of me. Thanks for your comments Deb! xoxo
PS my mom’s favorite book was ‘If like is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits’ by Erma Bombeck
Oh I am so glad you shared this memory!! I totally forgot about that book and haven’t thought of Erma Bombeck in years. Mom loved her too, I am sure she had a copy….or did she borrow it from your Mother?;) xx