Don't Forget to Enjoy Yourself

Sometimes you just have to step back for a second and take a breather before you overload yourself with so much nonsense and ridiculous worry that you forget how to enjoy life.

In a ridiculous series of events yesterday morning, I accidentally locked myself out of my own house. While it was a little less than convenient, it did provide me (albeit forced) an opportunity to stop for a minute and think about the direction of my life. I had nothing else to do except to wait for my spare key to arrive via its holder who was slightly delayed due to being at work at the time. I was hoping that my dog would somehow miraculously figure out how to jump up and hit the doorknob at least well enough to open the door a crack and let me back in; but instead he simply whimpered near the door’s base thinking he was missing out on something on the outside. So, instead, I decided to take a walk rather than look like a fool on my front stoop for the next hour. It had been quite a while since I walked the streets of my neighborhood and the surrounding area. Thankfully, it was an unusually warm winter day.

Perhaps I just needed the sunlight more than anything having been stuck on the night shift for the past week and having hardly seen the sun for being asleep during the day. Whatever it was, it seemed to change my perspective in just the way I needed. Not that I suddenly came to some great epiphany walking the streets in my work clothes and looking aimless on a weekday morning; but rather later that evening and into the next day (after a good bit of rest), I decided that I was making life a little more difficult than it needed to be at the moment.

I’ve done this repeatedly throughout my life, worrying about things that need not be worried about, expecting too much from relationships and trying so hard to make things work that I lose the whole point of the adventure and any meaning it could have. I was about to fall into the same trap again. Instead of worrying so much if a relationship is going to work, if you are truly compatible, if you are good for each other; sometimes you just have to let go and let time show you. It’s about going with the flow and, most importantly, enjoying yourself and the life you have. If you are always worried about your relationship, then how are you supposed to enjoy your relationship? Just do what comes naturally, and the rest will take care of itself.

It had been obvious to me since childhood that there is no ‘secret to life.’ There is nothing that makes you inherently a happier person, not even love. Life simply has to be lived. Beyond that, it is our choice (at least to some extent) to enjoy it or to be bogged down in misery. I realize that there are traumatic events that alter our existence, parts of our lives that can pull us into deep depression with no hope in sight. The same is true for ecstasy, although, in either case, the feeling is generally fleeting, even if the fleeting is extremely slow at times. We get what we get in this life, and we have to deal with it.

My new perspective is this: why get trapped in a cycle of anxiety and depression over things that I cannot change. Instead, go with the flow and enjoy everything and everyone you have to the greatest extent that you can. I am feeling a little crazy at the moment, ready for an insane adventure. I do not know what sort of adventure, but whatever it is, it will be fun because I will make it so. Things will work out the way they are supposed to. If I am meant to be alone, then so be it. If I am meant to spend my life with someone special, then so be that. I can do whatever I want, anything I want, and, in that, there is comfort, there is joy, there is a sense of not knowing what is coming next but not being afraid of that unknown. It is this lack of fear that has suddenly brought me a new found sense of freedom. I just hope the feeling isn’t temporary.