What do you do as each day is drawing to a close? Think about your evening routine as you prepare for bed. Perhaps you’re unwinding with a cuppa something or a glass of wine, or perhaps you’re brushing your teeth, the soft sound of your slippers padding from room to room as you lock the door, check this and that, peek in on the tousled heads of sleeping children.
Maybe you’re already tucked under the duvet, lights out, settling in for the night. The day has been recorded and you’re playing it back, perhaps on fast forward, occasionally running it on slow motion, or maybe hitting “pause.” Reliving the moments, the accomplishments, things left undone, the words that came out of your mouth and the ones that were directed back at you.
There will be highlights; there will be defeats. What they are will depend upon your circumstances and your perspectives, of course. And they will depend upon what’s important to you – and what isn’t.
Did you have any joy in your life today? Were there genuine moments of happiness? I truly hope so. But if you can’t think of any, how about trying to find some now? Go back to the beginning of the recording and go through it in slow motion so you can scan the picture for details you might have missed during the original recording and the first playback. Some days, it can seem like the only happiness you can find is that you’re still breathing and conscious. (I can relate to that)
Did you take some time to play?? Oh, please say yes! Okay, so you were insanely busy. (I can relate to that, too!) But if you didn’t actually stop and take some time to play, were you at least playful as you went about your activities? Was there a little water-flicking at your family while doing the washing up? How about cracking the most lame one-liners possible, or peppering conversations with the worst puns you can imagine? Ooooo, it’s so much fun to be silly!
Did you take some time to nourish your spirit? To revive your weary soul? Did you write in your journal, have a yummy hot bubble bath, or go for a walk? Did you get some hugs and cuddles from family or friends, especially if you needed them? If not, did you ask for some? If not, why not?!
Were you working working working? Were you being productive? Did you fritter away a bunch of your time? And if so, was it because you were taking a well-earned break, goofing off and taking some soul-saving time out? I hope so! You don’t have to work and be productive all the time.
I hope that when you go to bed, you can say it was a good day. Or a mostly-good day. Or at least, if it was really miserable, that you can change your perspective or your focus and find some good parts of it here and there because there are always blessings, no matter how awful things might seem.
But whatever happens throughout all of your days, I hope that when you climb into bed at night, you can feel good about what you did and the choices you made since getting up in the morning. I hope you’re happy about the parts of your day that you could control and your responses to the parts you couldn’t, because whatever you do on any given day should be of value to you. And as each day falls into the cemetery of all the others that went before it, every one that remains for you to spend becomes that much more precious.
Time is the only absolutely unrenewable resource we have. Once you spend it, it’s gone and you can never get it back or replace it. Never.
So tonight, when you crawl into your bed, I hope that when you “rewind and press play” about the day’s events, you feel confident that what you did today was important and meaningful to you because you gave up a whole day of your life for it. A day that becomes a part of your past, a part of who you are, and that you will never have again.