When does "real life" begin?
All my life, people have been telling me that “real” life hasn’t started for me yet. When you’re in kindergarten, all the third-graders you know come home and tell you how hard third grade is, how you think you’ve got it bad now, but when you get to third grade, then you’ll see how hard life can be. Then you arrive at the third grade, new lunchbox in hand and grim look of determination plastered on your face, and you find the bar has been moved. Now it is sixth grade that’s cruel and difficult, and third grade that is the pined-for yesterday. So you work for three more years to prove yourself, and arrive at the sixth grade with all your steely resolve and find the bar has been moved to high school, ninth grade. Again, you work for three more years, arrive at high school showered and refreshed, loins girded for battle, and you find that now everyone comes home from college and assures you it is college that is difficult and ninth grade that was the true Garden of Eden, where you could parade around in innocence without a care.
So you go to college, and then people look at you ruefully and say, “You should enjoy these years—these are the best years of your life. Wait ‘til you get out in the real world, and things get tough. You’re single, no real job, no real worries...you better enjoy it now.” So you go and get married and get a job. And, lo and behold, the same people say, “Enjoy it now. You’ve got it good. Wait ‘til you have kids—and then things really get tough.”
I guess I’m still gullible, because somehow I believed that once we had Gracie, people really would stop saying such things. I really would have arrived; I really would finally be a real grown-up. I thought I’d finally be welcomed into the club. But, lo and behold, the bar has moved again!
“Enjoy it now: just wait ‘til she starts to walk. Then things are going to get tough.”
I can see it now, can’t you?
2016: “Enjoy it now: just wait ‘til she starts to date.”
2022: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til she gets married—then it gets tough.”
2030: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til she has kids of her own and forgets all about you.”
2036: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til her kids grow up and start running you ragged.”
2050: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til her kids start driving—and take your keys away!”
2064: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til she has grandkids and forgets all about you again.”
Of course, I’m joking (I think). But there is something both sweet and sad about the way people say this to each other. It’s sweet because it’s wistful—it is truly a good-hearted thing to tell someone to enjoy the moment they are living in.
But it’s sad because it suggests that most people go around wishing that they had their yesterday back instead of living their today. It suggests that people love the past enough that they have a hard time appreciating the unique gift of the present—until, ironically enough, it becomes the past. Then they appreciate it.
It’s profoundly sad to me to think that some of us all the time—and all of us some of the time—live our lives wishing for a time that we cannot have back. We long for what was ten years ago; never mind that, ten years ago, we were wishing for what was ten years before that. And, on top of that, because everyone is always telling us how hard the future will be, we spend our lives anxiously worrying about a future that we’re not sure how we’re going to survive, since we feel stretched to the limit as it is. Between pining for the past and worrying about the future, we have no time or energy left to enjoy the present.
That is the ironic shame of all of this; the present is our most constant gift from God and the one we appreciate the least. How many miss the joy of the moment because they are fretting about the future? All around us are sweet gifts from heaven and we miss them because we want a snippet of a romanticized past or fear a looming future? How many new parents in my situation miss the beauty of seeing their baby girl at 4 in the morning because they want their sleep back, like they had in the past? How absurd! To live in the past or the future is to reject the gift of the present.
It is like the children of Israel looking at the miraculous manna and quail and demanding the leeks and onions of Egypt.
So, whatever your age, I say to you: Enjoy it now. Not because things are so great, but because now is God’s most recent gift to you!
So you go to college, and then people look at you ruefully and say, “You should enjoy these years—these are the best years of your life. Wait ‘til you get out in the real world, and things get tough. You’re single, no real job, no real worries...you better enjoy it now.” So you go and get married and get a job. And, lo and behold, the same people say, “Enjoy it now. You’ve got it good. Wait ‘til you have kids—and then things really get tough.”
I guess I’m still gullible, because somehow I believed that once we had Gracie, people really would stop saying such things. I really would have arrived; I really would finally be a real grown-up. I thought I’d finally be welcomed into the club. But, lo and behold, the bar has moved again!
“Enjoy it now: just wait ‘til she starts to walk. Then things are going to get tough.”
I can see it now, can’t you?
2016: “Enjoy it now: just wait ‘til she starts to date.”
2022: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til she gets married—then it gets tough.”
2030: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til she has kids of her own and forgets all about you.”
2036: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til her kids grow up and start running you ragged.”
2050: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til her kids start driving—and take your keys away!”
2064: “Enjoy it now. Just wait ‘til she has grandkids and forgets all about you again.”
Of course, I’m joking (I think). But there is something both sweet and sad about the way people say this to each other. It’s sweet because it’s wistful—it is truly a good-hearted thing to tell someone to enjoy the moment they are living in.
But it’s sad because it suggests that most people go around wishing that they had their yesterday back instead of living their today. It suggests that people love the past enough that they have a hard time appreciating the unique gift of the present—until, ironically enough, it becomes the past. Then they appreciate it.
It’s profoundly sad to me to think that some of us all the time—and all of us some of the time—live our lives wishing for a time that we cannot have back. We long for what was ten years ago; never mind that, ten years ago, we were wishing for what was ten years before that. And, on top of that, because everyone is always telling us how hard the future will be, we spend our lives anxiously worrying about a future that we’re not sure how we’re going to survive, since we feel stretched to the limit as it is. Between pining for the past and worrying about the future, we have no time or energy left to enjoy the present.
That is the ironic shame of all of this; the present is our most constant gift from God and the one we appreciate the least. How many miss the joy of the moment because they are fretting about the future? All around us are sweet gifts from heaven and we miss them because we want a snippet of a romanticized past or fear a looming future? How many new parents in my situation miss the beauty of seeing their baby girl at 4 in the morning because they want their sleep back, like they had in the past? How absurd! To live in the past or the future is to reject the gift of the present.
It is like the children of Israel looking at the miraculous manna and quail and demanding the leeks and onions of Egypt.
So, whatever your age, I say to you: Enjoy it now. Not because things are so great, but because now is God’s most recent gift to you!
posted by Rev. Michael Jordan at 1:11 PM
1 Comments:
Your website has a useful information for beginners like me.
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