Part of being healthy is being emotionally healthy. When I am busy, life can seem all-serious. There is a constant list of tasks to do, and I have a hard time getting everything done if I am too casual. So I focus, block out distractions, toughen up, and get it all done. I might be so successful at doing this that I forget to relax and enjoy things.
In the busy go-go-go stages, time slips by at an alarming rate, and we wake up to find that we have no positive memories of it. Life was like that for me when I was in college. I was very busy and stressed, and I have few memories of those hectic days. Most memories I do have, unfortunately, are negative ones due to mistakes I made in my overly task-oriented state. But there is one memory that stands out that is beautiful.
I was in a small choir of only 24 singers, and we spent our rehearsals in serious concentration. The music we sang was not easy, and our director expected a lot out of us. I liked the choir, but it was a task on the long list I had. I really didn’t have the energy to pause and enjoy it.
One day something different happened, though. We were singing a song that was slightly less demanding musically, and suddenly someone started to sway to the music. It spread throughout our entire group until we were all swaying to the beat, almost dancing to the music. At that moment, I realized how much I really enjoyed singing. It was more than a task. It was more than something to check off my list. It wasn’t something I had to take super-serious every minute. It was fun! That moment became one of my lasting and best memories of that time in my life.
It is very easy to take life too seriously, to demand perfection from ourselves and from others, and to stress when things don’t go the way we think they should. Sometimes we think we need to get away in order to stop stressing. But we don’t need a vacation to relax or to create lasting memories. Opportunities to dance to the music are available every day.
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