Make Your Life Story Award Winning: Be in the Moment

Your life story is written by one person and only one person and that is YOU. We create each and every page of our unique life story. Each moment becomes part of our own personal blueprint.  Your story will be like no one else's. You can decided whether you are going to be a hero or a bully or a best friend, a good spouse...whatever the title, the adjective, the noun...you plug them into the script.

Each new day we are presented with the opportunity to start fresh, shed the negative build up and wipe the slate clean. Spring especially reminds me of the chance for renewal. It's a time for magical moments when beautiful things come from what seemed like hopelessness. This story we are writing will be told again and again to future generations. Hopefully, your story will be a treasure to your grandchildren, your nieces, nephews, and ones you will never have the pleasure to know. It only makes sense to me that we would be good stewards of each and every moment that is available to us.

We labor over the preservation of fine furniture and take such precautions to protect expensive jewelry; I would hope we would do the same for life's precious moments! These are not moments that we need to worry about but just be mindful of them. Practicing this mindfulness is just as important as any other thing we practice to become proficient. Think about the time an Olympic athlete puts into training; look at the end results. What is something that you are passionate about? Do you spend much time prepping and preparing for it?

I like to walk each day, regardless of the weather. Therefore, I have coats for a cold day, coats for a windy day, shoes for rain, gloves if it is too cold. I am prepared for whatever the weather. I have a method to my walk. I warm up, then walk briskly; I trot a little; I sing a while; I whistle and snap my fingers. If you drive by me, you might think I am on a day pass because I probably look a little crazy, but it works for me. I am prepared and have put thought into how this will play out for me. We all need to be more in touch with the miracle of being alive today. THIS DAY! 

Stop worrying about what is around the corner. I am often times amazed at all these politicians and professional philanthropic do gooders who go from one cause to another because they are always worried about the future of our children or the future of this or that...excuse me...I am worried about our children today. This day, this moment. If we don't get it right today who says they will even have this future they are all so worried about? I have known some amazing people who have left this world due to illness and so many times I have heard people say that it's a shame that we have to have an experience like this to realize the wonder and gift of the moments of life.

Do you write your story and incorporate the precious moments of hearing the "I do's" from your wedding vows, your child's first word being spoken, the birds chirping on a sunny day at a family picnic, leaving milk and cookies out for Santa Claus, making up after an argument with your spouse, teaching your kids to ride a bike, learning your loved ones are safe after a car accident, having the ability to pay your bills and breathe fresh air and drink clean water or are you the type of person who thinks the moments on the page should be filled with nothing but big job promotions, looking for the next best thing, that a boy, job well done, pat yourself on the back moments? 

Over the past few years, I have learned to do what I have told you numerous times already and that is turn around. When you turn around and you take in what is going on not far behind you, the realization of the important moments seem to have a different perspective. Today has so much to offer. It is really the only day we are guaranteed. People are watching the moments you select for your story; trust me they are. I for one wish I had stories to put in my portfolio about little winged fairies who delivered me fabulous meals or butlers who stoked the embers of the fire at bedtime as they brought me in warm milk and cookies ...doesn't that all sound so far away and fabulous?

But your moments can be just as warm and fuzzy. Follow SJ's lead and give someone a twenty dollar bill at a gas station who just put five bucks in his tank. Introduce yourself to your sanitation worker when he collects the garbage next week and give him a genuine smile. Give the person at the bus stop money for the fare. Go meet the new neighbor who doesn't look just like you or dress as you do. These are award winning moments. They just might win your story a Nobel Prize in literature. I have moments in my life that have been award winning and some not so much, but the beauty of life is that every day I get another chance to get it right. Interviewing Collins' dates and threatening to cut their body parts off if they did not do the right thing, bad behavior at "some" of Michael and SJ's sporting events, and threatening bodily harm to numerous folks along the way are probably not some of my finest moments.

Last week when I was pulled over in Florida for an expired tag on the cargo van I had rented to haul furniture in and I told the sheriff that he had short man's syndrome was probably not one of my finer moments BUT I do have moments that I hope get shared time and time again. Moments of changing a life by showing a random act of kindness, moments of providing food to a family that has none, supplying clean water to a town that was leveled by a F15 tornado, moments of helping a child find a forever family. Such moments are the ones that define you. They are the ones that make that blueprint unique to you. Hopefully, you will not wake up one day, look in the mirror and say, "Man I've had a really good life" and wish you had realized this years ago! I don't have to tell you life goes by in the twinkling of an eye. The poet Walt Whitman said, "To me, every moment of the day and night is an unspeakable miracle." Use these miraculous moments to tell your life story in a way that will be parade worthy and award winning!

Photo credit by: RejiK

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