That’s Life

Life – Terror. Ecstasy. Fight. Denial. Flight. Failure. PAIN. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Hope. Love. Peace – Death.

There are things we enjoy, love in our lives and things that just have to be done. Most of us have to work for a living, if we are (very) lucky we get to have a job we love? Work, our job, is a massive part of our lives.

How much of your life is spent at work?

Writer Annie Dillard famously said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” For many of us, a large portion of our days is spent at work; in fact, the average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime.

We spend a third of our lives working.

Outside of our work we live, clean, maintain, complete daily-living chores? Tell me anybody who enjoys those activities? On a list of things required to live our lives, often essential requirements, my least enjoyable (life draining) necessity is DIY.

I am absolutely shit at DIY.

Maybe it’s a catch 22 situation?

I hate DIY as I am useless at DIY.

I am useless at DIY because I hate DIY.

It’s not like I haven’t considered this, I get it, I have lived long enough to be able to work DIY out. Buy the correct tools, apparatus, read the relevant books, watch the YouTube videos and you will (eventually) get better at DIY, ‘deliberate practice’ the development of expertise requires incorporating a self-reflective feedback loop into the skill delivery or development (i.e., practice) process, rather than simply performing a task repetitively until (if ever) mastered.

The catch with myself is motivation, I actually could not give two fucks if I never, (ever} got to be good at DIY! As my wife once said about music festival -camping ‘I would rather be at home sticking red-hot needles in my eyes’. Trust me, there will never be a time when I will say (to anybody) ‘what do you think of my latest DIY’?

We have to work. We have to consider life necessities. In-between we have {our} ‘moments’? Those special times that make living worthwhile. Everybody’s moments might be different.

If we are very lucky our moments will be frequent and often and outweigh life’s other, not so special bits. Without the not so special bits, the lows, we would not have those highs?  

Most of us do not really consider any of this until we have to. We are too busy living. Then when something changes we reflect. When you discover you have an incurable illness you are forced to reflect. It is unavoidable and (at first), all-consuming. This gets in the way of living at a time where we want nothing more than to be living..

The bad things (the necessities) no matter how vital (or not) for our normal living are relegated even further down our list. In a choice between a moment or house-work, there can be only one winner? Throw in, ‘I’m ill, I am unable, I am tired, I am dying!’ Top Trumps, in fact the top trumps?

The mundane things suddenly become easy (easier) to look the other way at. Truth is, it is (still) usually a choice, much the same choice as it always was, in reality we just don’t like doing some things but now we have the best excuse not to? If you can manage a hectic holiday schedule, walking tours every day, then you can manage work, daily-chores, DIY and house-work? It’s a choice.

Looking the other way

Nobody would blame you if you look the other way, nobody does. However, the impact of the choice remains. Not sudden and not the worse thing in the world, over time, destructive. No matter how much we care for anybody, we can grow to resent them, resent their choices and how that affect ourselves.

Life is about many things and not all good. Work, play, the good times and the less so good times, even the bad times have a part to play. A good life is is about creating and valuing those special moments but not ignoring the rest to the detriment of those we love and who love us. Easier said than done eh? That’s life.

May your moments be special and often.

Thanks for Reading

Peace