Love the life you live

Do you ever have those moments when you flick on Facebook, spot yet another new job/engagement/baby/new house/great holiday announcement, and have that sudden sinking feeling, 'What am I doing? What is happening in my life? Why am I so 'behind'?' This is the curse of social media. Suddenly we know the ins and outs of people lives we've long since stopped hanging about with. Lovely to catch up perhaps but so often it becomes a game of comparisons and don't you always come up short?

In many ways I think we would all be a lot better off if we took more of an honest approach to our interactions online. When a friends comes over for a cup of tea I don't list them my achievements of the week. No, I tell them how it is, the highs and the lows. The boring bits, the bits where I made an idiot of myself (what me? Never!) as well as the bits I'm pleased with and want to celebrate. Wouldn't life online would be so much richer if we poked fun of ourselves a little bit? Told the truth about the fact that, as we type, we are wearing old jogging bottoms, circa 1998, with an indiscreet hole that we STILL can't be bothered to sew up (Just me? Ah.....)

One of my favourite sayings from the book of Proverbs, that I often repeat it to myself, is this: 'Trust in God with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.' Because who knows why I have one lot and someone else has another? All I know is that I don't want to live my life in negative, in constant awareness of all the things I don't have. Rather I want to be where I am, feet firmly on the ground and looking about me for the possibilities and opportunities that MY life is offering ME.

All of this is neatly encapsulated for me in a single image I have from being in Greece, age 18. There my favourite early evening past time was to leap off the rocks into the sea. I'd just swim out in that clear, perfect blue water and feel totally alive, totally free and so deeply, unwaveringly bold. It's so easy to lose that exuberance under all the pressures of life, the shoulds, the oughts, the 'by nows', but who wins then? The life you could have had, your very own, remains unlived. Those straight paths are untraveled.

 

No, I'm reminded again to celebrate my one weird and wonderful little life. My chances, my opportunities, where I am right now. So bring it on Monday, I'm ready for you! Let's see what this week brings!