where wildly different is perfectly normal
Guest post: Sarah from Thoughts in Pieces
Guest post: Sarah from Thoughts in Pieces

Guest post: Sarah from Thoughts in Pieces

I’ve known Sarah for just shy of forever. Seriously. She was one of my first flute students when I moved to Colorado 14 years ago, and now we’re OMG MY KIDS ARE DRIVING ME INSANE friends. With wine. Or margaritas. Or sake. You get the idea.

Thanks for filling in for me today, Sarah. Itinerary says we’re at Mesa Verde and chances are pretty good I’m having a stroke keeping the boys away from the edge of the cliff houses.

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Roses.

As life moves forward, life itself seems to pick-up speed.  A runaway avalanche in time.  We find ourselves racing on the highway, over the limit, yelling obscenities and one-fingered-salutes at those who dare to travel at only 5 over 65.  We move through our days on a diet of Starbucks, McDonalds, and insomnia.  Add a cocktail of hypertension, heartburn, and sedative prescriptions, and as a generation, we are slated to live shorter lives than those of our parents.  Have we really forgotten the smell of the roses?

What are we teaching our children?  Do we want our children to learn these behaviors?  I find the need to stop and think.  Would I want my children to carry on the behaviors I now show?  Does every day need to be filled to the brim with activity?  Even on the days when I plan “rest” I feel an inability to stop.  That is truly the problem.  When taking one day to re-learn the smell of roses, what else do I find my mind wondering to?  Bills. Therapy appointments.  Laundry.  Work.  Husband.  Children.  The list continues on, until it consumes my day, and I no longer have the ability to appreciate the flower.  This unstoppable force keeps me awake at night.

Perhaps we all need a bit of perspective.  Start with an hour.  A moment of time to just STOP.  To not worry about the excessive speeds of life.  Forget trying to find a rose to sniff, just breathe the air.  Fill the lungs to the bottom…all the way, and just see what happens.  In one breath, the heart rate drops.  Breath two, the mind is clearer.  Breath three and suddenly the walls stop closing in and no longer do I feel like suffocating under the weight of my life.  The stress of life is threatening to consume us all, unless we make an effort to change it.  We can’t expect life to change for us.  There is no entitlement on this one.  We need to make an effort to make that change and learn how to just stop.  Perhaps then, we will remember how to smell the roses.

 

I can be found at http://thoughtsinpieces.wordpress.com

 

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