I Keep Forgetting

WORD FOR THE DAY

You have to remember one life, one death–this one! To enter fully the day, the hour, the moment whether it appears as life or death…requires only a moment, this moment.

Stephen Levine 

Poet and author Stephen Levine focused much of his work and writing on death and dying, and the grieving process. It's important for me to give it some focus too. If not, I become too complacent. I go through my days forgetting how precious each one is. Forgetting that life is not made up of years, but rather moments that add up to days, days that add up to years.

I keep forgetting. Most of us do. It is human nature. Even after great joys and deep pains, we tend to return to our general level of personal happiness. There is a name for this tendency: hedonic treadmill or hedonic adaptation. 

It is helpful to consider the little joys and embrace the minor hurts that each day brings. Like the significant life and death moments, these also help us not forget how tenuous and absolutely stunning life is. 

Some of our habits, healthy or not, may factor in to how long we each live. How I eat, sleep, and exercise are obvious examples. What factors in to how fully I live my days? How fully present and in tune I am? It is simply how I enter each moment.  

Paying attention calmly or racing ahead in fear or busyness? Applying my amazing senses to better experience what is going on around me right now, or walking right past some small awe of Nature? 

How does that line go? Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes, I will forget and miss moments today. 

Plenty of them. Yet, this mindful start to my day sets me up to remember to pause more, breathe freely, notice.