Saturday, January 22, 2011

Enjoying Life


You only have one life, so enjoy it!
It seems that daily I see many advantages to Living in Truth that make life so much more enjoyable and easier. Yesterday I told you it was a crazy day, the kind of day that used to throw me into the Pit, but I got through the crazy without going down. As I’ve told you before, we are painting and redoing the upstairs. But I have a friend who just finished her PhD and we wanted to celebrate so I planned a Tea Party for her. The only day I don’t teach is Fridays and yesterday was the only Friday that one of the other women invited could come. So I scheduled the Tea Party despite the chaos at my house. That was fine because my main level isn’t under construction, but the new carpet is coming next week and the tile had to be laid before the carpet and so the tile man was working while my Tea Party was going on.

Let me back up a little here. I’ve been annoyed for most of my life about people who think they can’t have company over unless they do a spring cleaning first. The Truth is that everything can’t be perfect all the time and when we cheat ourselves out of wonderful relationships just because we’re worried about a little dust, we cheat ourselves of one of the most important things in life. Another Truth is that if friends condemn or criticize us because there is a little dust in our homes or something is out of place or our furniture isn’t as new or modern or nice as other people’s, then they really aren’t friends. So acting on those two Truths, I had the Tea Party, but with the tile being laid there turned out to be some extra things to do that I wasn’t counting on and I didn’t get all I wanted to do done for the party. That turned out to be just fine also. No one but me knew they didn’t get done!

Final Truth, we had a delightful time even though the tile man walked through the room once in awhile and my entry way was a complete construction zone (replete with dust, mud, and dirt) when my guests arrived, and the sounds of sawing and hammering punctuated our conversation. The verity of the situation was that I couldn’t do a thing about it and so I didn’t. I didn’t stew or fret or stress. Instead I enjoyed my guests and had a delightful time. The Truth is that if they didn’t, it is their problem and not mine. But I don’t think any of them even noticed. They all seemed to be having as much fun as I did!

4 comments:

SuSu said...

I love it. We have a fairly long commute each day; at least an hour in both directions. But we get to travel together, I consider that a big bonus. That aside I always laugh when people say how can you stand the traffic. First we live in California, traffic is all we have. But driving is so peaceful to me because I can't control traffic. If we are late oh well. I never stress over it because it is something we can't control and I won't let it control me. Just like your "construction zone" you couldn't do anything about it so you just go with the flow. So much more peaceful that way!

Wendi said...

I'm glad you had a good time in spite of the chaos at your house. :)

Tristi Pinkston said...

Hi there,

I just wanted to pop in and introduce myself. I'm one of Walnut Spring's newest authors and I'm eager to make friends with the other authors. I'm also interested in interviewing you on my blog and possibly even trading you interviews. Let me know if you're interested! tristipinkston@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

So much more happiness is available to us when we choose to enjoy what is. Love your fantastic example :)