Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Living a Life You Love: Tip #2-Just Do It

Tip #2 in a week long series on Living a Life You Love.
Click the links to read the series Intro and Tip #1

Tip #2: Just Do It.

I'm going all Nike on you here. Just do it. Quit making excuses.

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!

6 comments:

  1. My "just do it" moment of the month was getting a swimming snorkel. It looks soooo dorky and works soooo well.

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  2. Your camping trip sounds wonderful!

    The "just do it" thing challenges me. I've been doing TheKitchn's online baking school, and I am determined to bake every lesson (no taking the "watch a video" option).... but last night I was all cranky-groany-can't-decidey about starting yeast-based sweet roll dough. Too hard, too many steps, too long to soften butter...

    I got up and made the dough anyway (with oil) and had lovely cinnamon rolls for breakfast today! And it honestly wasn't that much work or mess.

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  3. I've started to learn that the reasons you mentioned in your second paragraph for not doing something . . . the legitimate "I only have $15", or "I broke my foot" aren't excuses at all. They are actual reasons you can't do something. Excuses are the ones that don't hold any water. So, if I'm hemming and hawing about something, I'll ask myself if my hesitation comes from an excuse, or a valid reason. Actually separating the two by calling them different names has been very helpful for me! :)
    Congrats to you and your family for biting the bullet and taking that camping trip! :)

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