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Written by Karen D. Swim

No matter how much I have tried to deny it, August is quickly coming to close. This of course means that we are also coming to the end of the summer. Bummer! In the cold of winter, summer seemed so far away. I had big plans for time away and summer fun.   Well, it rained for the first part of the summer and now it’s almost over.  I allowed my excuses to get in the way of living and now my “soon” has become “yesterday.”

“Opportunities are like sunrises — if you wait too long, you miss them.”– William Arthur War

How often do we postpone living with a litany of excuses? “As soon as my business hits $X, I’ll take a little break.” “When the kids are older, I will ___________,” “In a couple of months when things are quiet, I will…” “I will…..when I lose 10 pounds, get that promotion, blah, blah, blah!” Yet, all too often soon comes and goes and we are left with a bunch of yesterdays and unfulfilled desires.  We all know this but why do we continue to do it? Well, I have witnessed (okay experienced) three reasons.

1. We are unyielding in our quest for the ideal.  Often we plan for perfection, and are unwilling to settle for anything less.  Will the experience be any less fun if it is not perfect? Will a day at the beach spent with family totally suck because you didn’t lose 2 pounds? Well yes if you focus on the size of your thighs rather than the experience itself.  Ideal is incredible but so are the imperfect experiences along the way.
2. F-E-A-R. Fear! You’re a giant chicken afraid that you will fail. Fear is far more paralyzing than anything that can happen when you try and blow it.  If you’re waiting for the fear to magically disappear, you will be waiting till death do you part. The fear does not necessarily go away. You have to embrace it and go for it anyway.  This is not to be confused with rational fear. For example you should be very afraid of leaping from a building believing you can fly or standing in front of a moving train.  You’ve been warned.
3. We have lost control of the bus. It is possible to allow our lives to veer out of balance.  We concentrate on one area and neglect others.  Before you know it the whole thing has gone off course. You look up in a daze and realize your toddler is asking for the car keys, or the vacation happened but you were not part of it.  Hit the brakes, pull over to the side of the road and plot a new course.   To prevent this from happening, check in on a regular basis to ensure that you make corrections quickly.

The good news is that if you’re reading this post, you’re still breathing (yay!) and there is still hope! So let’s change our wicked ways together.  Life is here and now. I may not be able to jump on a plane and fly to Italy today but there are a host of things that are available to me. My pockets are pretty heavy with yesterdays but thankfully I have today.

And now I’ld love to hear from you. Have you ever been guility of putting off something you wanted? How did you get back on course?

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Written by Karen D. Swim

Yesterday, my family gave a surprise party to celebrate my mother’s 70th birthday.  The first thing I saw when I arrived on the street was the top of the moon bounce peeking over the top of my sister’s house.  (A moon bounce is kind of like an enclosed trampoline, except bouncier.)  Now this could make things a lot more interesting! After carrying food and flowers to the yard, I chatted and laughed with family as we waited for the birthday “girl” to arrive.

After 20 minutes, I could no longer hold out and placed my high heel shoes next to the row of tiny sneakers and pink moccasins. Heck, they didn’t have these things when I was growing up and it looked fun. While whooping and hollering it up with the kids and my nutty cousin Lisa (who is my age and crawled in right before me) it occurred to me that life is a lot like a moon bounce.

The window of opportunity is sometimes a tiny opening. To get into the moon bounce, there is a tiny little opening at the top of a small ramp.  You can’t just walk up and enter the bounce.  You have to walk up (without falling off the side) and then propel or slither your way in under a flap that opens just a wee bit.  In life, some opportunities are behind the tiniest of doors. They may not even appear immediately visible. However,  when you make it up the ramp and shimmy through, you are pleasantly surprised on the other side.

Bouncing on one side causes imbalance. If you bounce on one side of the moon bounce you risk sliding downward. Bouncing in the middle is ideal allowing you to veer a little to the left, or right with no risk of injury.  When you bounce on one side in life (such as work) you risk the other things sliding off to the side.

It’s easier to bounce higher once you have momentum. Once you find your footing and are bouncing up and down, it is much easier to bounce just a little higher without much effort.  Sometimes in your life you’re on a roll, or a bounce. You have tackled a challenge or completed a major project and your confidence is pretty high. In those moments, it is easy to get started on a new goal or accept another challenge because you are already in the air.

When bouncing around, keep your eyes alert. While bouncing up and down, me and my nephew decided on flips at the exact same moment. Like two unwiedly underwater acrobats, we dove from opposite directions and collided. Luckily, only his hands smacked me in the head as he landed across me. We collapsed in giggles.  Sometimes we are going along in life, bouncing around and out of nowhere (or so it seems) an obstacle collides in our pathway. It’s important to keep your eyes open so that you don’t crash!

After moon bouncing, and later being bounced off the ramp to the grass, I was a little less than ahem photo ready.  Life can toss you around at times too. You may fall down, and even get smacked in the head, but nothing that can’t be all forgotten with a little cake!

How, about you? How’s your bounce these days? Are you soaring high or tumbling around? What are your tips for staying grounded while still enjoying life?

This entry is a contribution to Robert Hruzek’s August Group Writing Project, Metaphors for Life. If you would like to participate, there is still plenty of time.  The deadline for entries is August 10th.  Thanks Robert for allowing me to explore the ongoing hilarity of life with this project!

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Written by Karen D. Swim

“Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure – measure a year?
In daylights – in sunsets
In midnights – in cups of coffee
In inches – in miles
In laughter – in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life” –Seasons of Love, from the musical Rent

As I danced around in the gym after my workout singing this song along with the TV, (yes I danced and sang and could care less who was watching!), I considered the question. It is a brand new month, how would I measure it? What would I do with the next 31 days? What would I do with this day and the minutes, seconds and hours that stretched before me? Would my month be measured in smiles or tears? Would I measure it in chances taken or opportunities that passed me by?

Sweaty and winded, and flying high on endorphins I heard the music – the music of life. A heart pumping bass line accompanied by joyful horns that reminded me I was fully, completely alive.  I am here in this moment, in this time.  Yesterday is gone, but this moment is here. I could waste it with petty worries of things gone wrong, or plans that failed…or I could rejoice in the present.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.” –  From To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time, Robert Herrick

I have no stinking idea what tomorrow holds but today I intend to live and to live boldly. I will dance in the middle of the gym, laugh at my own jokes and live life at my own pace.  This month I will not play it safe, because the same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying. If I take a risk and fall flat on my face, who cares? I will have lived, learned and created another blog post.

Now, it is your turn. How will you measure the month?  Be bold, express yourself, the mic is open.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCuMDMGLDKU]

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