Busy, busy, busy. Between family, work, socializing and getting ahead, there isn’t much time in the day to indulge in the pleasure of doing nothing. It seems like we are going at full speed from the minute we wake up until we collapse in bed to sleep.
If you are living like this, have you ever wondered why? Or are you swept up in the current of modern life, unaware that there is even the possibility to be any other way?
It can help to evaluate where you are and where you are going. Many of us aren’t eating the way we know we should, or getting enough healthy exercise, or taking time to just relax and enjoy a slower pace of life.
Two weeks of vacation a year isn’t enough. It can be more healing to take a mini-vacation from your life every day by finding a way to relax for a few moments.
Stress has become the default way to be in this world. It’s almost a bragging point, telling others how we are cramming 32 hours of life into a 24-hour day.
Honestly, no one else cares because they are busy too. But if you are pushing yourself to live this kind of lifestyle, then it might be useful to reexamine the direction you are going.
Life is delightful. There are so many opportunities to look around and appreciate what a gift it is. Technology has made it so we can be entertained by anything we choose with the push of a button. We can carry our lives in a cellphone and be connected to everything wherever we go. Compared to even a hundred years ago, it is a great time to be alive.
But maybe you don’t feel that way. With technology has come the ability to work every waking hour. You answer emails when you could be relaxing, or stay constantly abreast of the latest news and how it could affect your corner of the world.
The mind never stops; it doesn’t even slow down. Sleep might not come easily anymore even though you are exhausted. The mind continues to run endlessly, thwarting your efforts to get the rest you so desperately need.
Then it’s up and at it again the next day. And so on.
In the quest to live an amazing life, we aren’t actually living at all. We are just doing. Life now is about constantly doing something to get somewhere and have things and money and success and everything else that will eventually make us happy.
It seems like we are doing life backwards. What if you pivoted and made happiness the goal of today and not some far-off future?
Stress and happiness can’t coexist. It is impossible. Stress causes a hormone response, an adrenaline surge that becomes the body’s way to deal with the rush of life. The problem is, your body doesn’t know that you are trying to make a wonderful life for yourself. It actually thinks that it is in danger and is going to be killed.
Then one day the adrenal glands have had enough and are too fatigued to keep up with you. At this point you have to add stimulants from outside of you to get through the day. Coffee is a wonderful beverage that can be healthy, but not in excess. Pharmaceutical drugs are never the answer.
Excess of anything isn’t good. Except for happiness and joy, which you can never get enough of.
Just because you have bought into a certain way of life that you think is the only way, consider that maybe it isn’t. Often we need to suffer a serious illness or accident to knock us off of the treadmill we are on and allow us to reconnect with what is important. When you are suddenly faced with your own survival, clarity can inspire you to make some changes.
You can uncover this clarity without having to go through the life-changing event. It’s important to look at where you are and how you are living and decide if the stress is worth it.
You don’t want to lose it all while chasing the desire to have it all.