A recent birthday got me thinking. Birthdays have a tendency to do that, don’t they?
As I pondered the year ahead, I thought about what would make it the Best Year Ever.
We would all answer that differently. We tend to think of special landmarks in our lives, celebrations with families or friends, new adventures. For some of us, it’s doing things that we want to do from our dream list or life list. We look forward to the year in eager anticipation of doing new things, accomplishing new fulfilling goals.
And what if life shows up and has different plans for us? A dear friend of mine lost her husband, suddenly and unexpectedly, this year. On a much smaller scale, but still an interruption, I was consigned to a couch for two months of summer while my broken wrist and banged-up knees healed. And right after I was sprung from the couch, I got bronchitis, another little physical take-down.
What if the Best Year Ever is merely the exquisite quality of attention that I pay to my life? That what makes it the Best Year Ever is my degree of presence, rather than things that happened to me or things I did?
For one thing, I have complete choice over that. I get to choose how I come to my life.
This occurred to me when I was on an “ordinary” dog walk, with my pack, my husband and two dogs, a week or so ago. This is something we do a few times a day. Nothing extraordinary, right?
When I looked at these asters, everything else in the world disappeared for me. They drew me like a magnet, and I fell in love with them in that instant. And the thought that came into my mind was “Best Year Ever.”
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