Thursday, April 2, 2009

Savor Every Moment

I have a theory, okay, I have lots of theories, but this one in particular has been bouncing around in my brain for a few months.

I recently met a guy, we'll call him Jon, who fell off a cliff while camping. He broke his neck and for about 5 minutes was paralyzed. He got his ability to walk back, but he spent months and months in enormous pain throughout his body and incredible headaches that made him unable to sleep for more than 2 hours at at time. He is, for the most part, fine now, he has a slight limp but you would never know about the ordeal he had unless he told you.

Someone else I have known for a few years, we'll call him Sam, recently shared with me that as a young child he had a tumor removed from his spine. He was in a lot of pain but didn't tell anyone, he didn't want to miss out on the sports season he was involved in at the time, until one day he could barely walk and he had to tell his folks. The tumor, thankfully, was not cancerous, he had it removed and went through a recovery period. And like Jon, if Sam didn't tell you about the incident you would never know.

Sam and Jon are pretty different people except in one respect. I have seen both of them in pretty difficult tense situations and they don't get rattle. They are the epitome of go with the flow kind of people. Both very smart, well spoken people who present themselves well, they just have a presence about them that is hard to nail down.

Until, I found out about their life threatening/altering medical events. And this is where my theory comes in... they get it, deep down they truly understand what it means to savor every moment, to live in the present, to smell the roses, only worry about the important stuff and to take in all the sights, because for a time, how ever brief, they both thought there wouldn't be any more moments to savor. Or at least that is my theory.

So I wonder, truly wonder, if there is a way, without the life threatening moments to get to that place where you can savor every moment, live wholly in the present and not sweat the small stuff.

I don't wish for anyone the life events that either Sam or Jon had, but I do wish for everyone- or at least for me- to find the way to smell the roses and savor every moment and not sweat the small stuff.