I just got home Thursday from my wife's family reunion at Otter Creek, Utah and I am amazed at how long it is taking to physically recuperate from what was supposed to be a relaxing getaway. Two days have passed and it always seems like there's something to take up my time. I promised myself (and my wife) that we would catch up on our rest once we got home, but that's not happening. Why is there always something else to do?
Gone are the carefree days of childhood and the hormone-charged days of teenagehood. Now I'm an adult and I can't understand why people younger than me are so anxious to grow up. It's not nearly as much fun as everyone thought it was going to be in junior high and high school. A lot of work and responsibility and too little sleep and relaxation.
I've wondered if the only time that we're truly free is in retirement. When you're a kid, you're too young to do things (can't drive, too short to ride the really cool rides at the amusement park, etc.), when you're a teenager and young adult you're stuck in school, and then you spend the next forty years of your life working for The Man (whoever that is). Then you retire and within a few years, you're too old and tired to do much of anything. And all your money goes to paying for your prescription pills. Guess you're never really free. At least not in the way that we defined freedom when we were kids (the ability to go anywhere and do anything you want to). But the one comfort in all this is that our definition of freedom changes with each stage of our lives. The strongest (and only) prison in life is the one we create in our minds, or so the saying goes. Hopefully we learn to accept the limitations in our lives and begin to see the blessings. Therein lies our freedom. That's the trick to it all....
Travis and his wife, Robyn, Thanksgiving 2007
Candy For Your Ears.
1 comment:
Reminds me of how people say that when they get home, they need a vacation in order to recover from their vacation!
Although there truly is always "something else to do," perhaps as we get older we will find ourselves more able to be at peace with what we choose to do and choose not to do--just as you wrote in your post--to learn to "accept our limitations and begin to see the blessings."
I remember an old song that comforts me in this area. "Some dreams must wait (life isn't long enough)...some dreams must wait to come true...It's nice to know there's all eternity, for everything you'd like to do. There are songs you won't sing, there are stories that you won't ever hear...pages you'll never turn, words that you'll never know, things that you never will learn...
There's never enough time...and that is why I'm glad we go on forever..."
(from the musical, "My Turn On Earth")
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