Life is Today, Not Yesterday, Not Tomorrow

Catch a load of Pat Robertson today! If you don't know about this, you must have fallen behind even more than me in the world's current events. . .at least the United States current events.

Rode my bike again after work today. I think I prefer the bike riding to the napping. I get more hungry, but it feels good to push those muscles, even though one of my tendons or ligaments on the back of my leg has that ache. It has ached for just about fifteen years now and only when I'm riding my bike or something like that, so I'm not too worried. I also feel like after just last night, I've got more energy today. It's nice.

Have to admit, though, as I rode on the bike path along the Charles River, I longed to ride along Lake Michigan in Chicago. I have yet to ride on a bike path on that shore. I really haven't even stepped on that shore except around Navy Pier and the Shedd Aquarium (wow. . .that's a pretty cool graphic for Navy Pier, even though the fireworks on Wednesdays and Saturdays look so much better in real life. . .even though you have to face the cold to see them).

Chicago really just calls for me. Last fall, the Girl and I flew out to Los Angeles. When we had our layover in Chicago, I felt sad that we wouldn't stay there for at least a day. At least we plan on going there near the end of September, having made the spontaneous decision yesterday and getting some pretty good rates with American Airlines. I rarely do spontaneous things this way. Woohoo for me!

I want to experience Chicago.

Anyway. . .at the age of 27 and thinking as much as I do (some people say I think too much and feel sorry for me because of all that thinking. . .maybe I just enter into Hypomanic states a lot), I taught myself another lesson worth learning: if I value a person or a group of people, I need to make sure that I make time to spend with them and accept many of their invites and invite them to a lot of stuff.

Over the last three or five years, I've learned a lot and gone over my behavior in the past, and I'm thinking this lesson might be one of the most important ones that I have learned. I feel like I've lost a connection with many people simply because I felt too proud or too scared to consciously set aside time to spend with a person or a group of people. I've stressed out a lot, thinking about how I've probably offended them or pissed someone off because of some action of mine and feeling really really guilty when, in the long run, I simply allowed myself to get hyperfocused on some other goal, mainly to take my mind off of the stress that I felt for not having as good of a connection with someone that I would like to have.

When I have kids, I really want to stress this lesson to them. If you haven't learned it, please do, or if you don't have the courage to follow through with it, please muster up that mettle. We have one life to live. . .if we don't, we'll probably forget this one. . .or, if anything, it will at least lighten the load of this life for you and not leave you with some kind of guilt inducing regret to harass you longer than you like.

Do it, but try to relax and don't see it as something that will end the world. . .because I think other people are working on that one. Getting embarassed and feeling foolish for taking a chance at something won't end of the world, even if it feels like crap falling on top of you for a week or so. That feeling doesn't even compare to the regret that can last for years by not taking the chance.

And please don't feel bad for me. I'm sick of the pity and really don't feel so bad about the past these days. It has helped to realize that even though I hold some responsibility for the mistakes I've made with people, they probably have their own share in how things turned out. Besides, I've come to a good place and have happiness now. Not really worth the regret, even if I miss some of those people. That's all it really is now, missing the contribution that some people in the past may have given to me. But oh well. . .thing's are good and I've found a happiness now that I may not have found if I followed through on the things that I sometimes wish I had one.

Life is now, not yesterday, not tomorrow.