Family Night

Part of the gift I gave my kids for Christmas was a promise that once a week, on my non-Sunday day off, we'd do Family Day/Night.  Today is that day and Tucker has been marking it off on the calendar all week long with the same enthusiasm he showed for Christmas approaching.  This morning, when I woke up, he already had the games stacked and ready.

I got paid yesterday.

Life is GOOD.

Stepping out

Happy New Year!  May the blessings of peace and prosperity find you this year.  May your heart be at ease and your days be filled with laughter.  May the sun warm your face and the moon embrace you drawing the tide of your life high. 

In thinking about the traditional habit of making resolutions for the New Year, I find myself destracted by the thought of the fact that it's another YEAR of my life that I've just closed the door on.  Stepping into 2006 feels a little like stepping up the gallows.  No matter how long my life may turn out to be, the fact is that it's slipping into the past whether I wish it to or not.

"... the only time you ever have in which to learn anything or see anything or feel anything, or express any feeling or emotion, or respond to an event, or grow, or heal, is this moment, because this is the only moment any of us ever gets. You’re only here now; you’re only alive in this moment."

-- Jon Kabat-Zinn

The older I get the more I am aware of opportunity cost.  Every choice I make closes the door on all the choices I could have made.  Every moment I spend on a given activity is a moment that I can't have back to spend on any other activity. 

When I was younger, I heard the thing about living as though you only had one day left to live, and I thought that was a bad way to go.  It seemed too stressful, too intense to live with the pressure of choosing every moment as though it might be the last moment and the last choice of your life. 

Now, I think life is too short to live it any other way.  I'm not saying that I'll quite my job and run away to the beach.  But I don't have to resolve it, I am already compelled by the knowledge of my mortality to live the next day month and year conscious in every moment that I cannot put off until tomorrow the things I want.  I'm not assured of tomorrow.  So if I'm going to have a life that I can lay down without regret, I will LIVE it every day.

Today, I'm building a Ferris Wheel out of K'Nex.