Tip #2 in a week long series on Living a Life You Love.
Tip #2: Just Do It.
Want to join water aerobics, but your friends think it's weird? Jump in the pool anyway! Be the weird kid! Want to go see the birds take off from the lake in the morning? Set the alarm...it's only that one morning of getting up early, not a life time of lost sleep! Want to see a funky little shop you passed last week? Stop by on your way to the grocery store just to take a peek!
So many times we come up with excuses to not do things that we really would love to do. some excuses really are legitimate. Like if you only have $15 in your bank account and driving up the mountain to go camping would take $20 in gas. Or a broken foot keeping you from running a marathon. Obviously there are real excuses to not do things. I'm not talking about those though. I'm talking about excuses like not doing something neat because you don't want to miss the next episode of Once Upon a Time. Those excuses are the ones that kill the magic.
Not too long ago we looked up the best time to see Fall Foliage near here and found it was the peak weekend. But it was already 3PM on Sunday. We were half way through the long weekend and the colors were at least an hours drive away. We hemmed and hawed for half an hour. There's not much time left. I don't want to pack the car. I don't want to unpack the camping gear and clean up after. I'm tired. We don't have good camping food. What if Darrow hates camping and it's miserable? Excuse after excuse rolled out.
Thankfully we finally just decided to bite the bullet and do it. By 4:10 we'd thrown the tent, clothes, blankets, pillows, and various food items in the car and we headed out. We got to the north end of the mountain at sunset with just enough light to get camp set up. It was chilly, the ground was hard (my neck and shoulder still hurt a week later...I'm a wuss), and we had bean burritos for dinner. It wasn't the most comfortable and yummy camping experience, but we enjoyed visiting, sitting by the fire, looking at the stars, and watching Darrow explore with his tiny flashlight.
In the morning we broke camp at sunrise, finished the driving tour around the mountain to see the colors, did some Halloween costume supply shopping, and went back home. It wasn't a vacation you'll see on Pinterest. We hurt. I had more laundry to do than normal. We were tired from the lack of sleep. But it was completely worth it! We feel closer together as a family. It makes us smile. It made it easier to jump into this next week. And we have some fun memories!
Had we kept hemming and hawing and making excuses we would have missed this. We wouldn't have these memories of Darrow's first camping trip, of the leaves (not spectacular by East Coast standards, but pretty good for AZ!), seeing the spectacular night sky, or the family time.
Moral of the story:
Let go of your excuses and fears and just go do it!
