Living Eulogy
she danced. she sang. she took.
she gave.
she loved. she created.
she dissented. she enlivened.
she saw. she grew. she sweated.
she changed.
she learned. she laughed.
she shed her skin.
she bled on the pages of her days,
she walked through walls,
she lived with intention.
Mary Anne Radmacher
Life is short and, as each year passes, I’m more aware of how some days of my life slip past in a haze of busyness or lethargy. I want to stop and enjoy the moments with intention. I want to make my life add up to something significant and important–not in a materialistic sense, but in a my-life-matters sense.
If you want to create a life you love, then you need to do something you love. Today, I’m choosing to do something I love, just for the fun of it.
Being intentional doesn’t just mean being bound up in goals, KPI’s, and must-do tasks. If you love what you’re doing, whether it’s family, exercise, work, fun, something in you knows that that’s the way life should be. What is sown in us at birth is a sense of our authentic, real selves.
What often happens to us is that we look at our everyday circumstances and forget that there’s a river of our true self running underneath. Our true self can be subdued when we prioritise the urgent and deal with the problem that is in our face today, without connecting with our soul.
Being intentional, choosing to do something we love, even for five minutes, will reconnect our souls with our authentic selves.
Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
― Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi
I’ve spent the last week in Esperance doing things I love–reading, walking on the beach, writing in my journal, boogie boarding, flying low over the coastline in a small plane, sharing meals with friends and holding hands with my love.
Why do we think we need to only do these things on holidays or weekends?
I’m a writer and it’s what I love to do. So often, I put it last on my agenda because I have tasks I need to do–the laundry, vacuuming, cooking, and so on. Writing doesn’t feel like work to me, so I feel guilty about spending so much time doing it. But, writing is part of my authentic self, so why not make it a priority every day?
This is just one example of how I’m working on my intentions this year. I’m finding creative ways to find time to build the life I want to live–even in the small blocks of time I have in the busyness of life.
Today I’m going to do something fun. I’m going to stop “doing,” “going” and “having,” and pay more attention to “being.”
What are you going to do today that is fun?
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