A Life of Euphoria
by Tina Barnes
Do you know that feeling when you wake up and, for a split
second, all is right with the world? You
are euphoric… you stretch, relax your body, bury your head deeper into your
pillow, pull the blankets up around your face, smile and let out a sigh. Hmmm, it feels great!
Then, like an obnoxious alarm clock, the dam bursts open and
out gush all of the anxieties and worries of the world that lives on your
shoulders. The moment of bliss is gone,
replaced with a thousand simultaneous “musts”:
must pay that bill, must meet that deadline at work, must finish that school
science project, must do laundry, must buy stamps at the post office, must
figure out what’s for dinner tonight, must, must, must!
And so, another day begins.
You rush to make breakfast and get your kids to school looking half
awake. You run the gauntlet on the road,
avoiding near misses all the way to work.
By the time to get to work, your knuckles are white, and your blood
pressure is through the roof. You spend
8, 9, 10 hours at work, stressing over deadlines, fixing problems, dealing with
irate customers, all on behalf of your corporate employer who reaps the
profits, while you go home with a paycheck that’s spent before it touches your
fingertips. You narrowly escape death
sixteen separate times on the drive home, whilst your thoughts bounce back and
forth between “what in the world am I going to make for dinner?” and “how in
the heck did these people EVER get a driver’s license?”. You make it through dinner (“Pork chops
AGAIN, Mom?”), help with homework and the science project and, if you’re lucky,
have enough time left to just enjoy your
kids, before it’s bath and bed time. The
kids tucked up in bed, you go downstairs and get back to all the work emails
and text messages you didn’t get a chance to respond to earlier, clean up the
dinner dishes, feed the dogs, straighten up the living area, get the backpacks
ready for tomorrow, and collapse in an exhausted heap on the couch, where you
are woken 5.5 hours later by a stream of dribble running from the corner of
your mouth. You slurp it up, drag
yourself to bed (vowing to shower in the morning), and go back to sleep for 5
minutes before the alarm goes off.
And then you do it again the next day… and the next… and the
next.
I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to believe that
this is the life we are supposed to live.
I’m not saying we have miserable, discontent lives. Most of us thoroughly enjoy time with our
kids, doing something we love, going to our favorite places, or reading our
favorite books. However, step back and
look at the bigger picture. Overall, the
majority of us are living day to day like robots, doing all the things that
mainstream society says we SHOULD be doing, and spending a very small portion
of our lives actually LIVING - doing what we love, what moves us, what fulfills
us, what makes us euphoric.
Here’s a thought. What
if that moment of euphoria we feel upon waking is how we are supposed to
live? What if we unknowingly snuff the
joy out every morning, smothering it with the “musts” and “need to"s. We spend a split second per day in perfect,
complete, all-encompassing JOY and 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds doing
what society says we are “supposed to”. Instead
of snuffing out that momentary flicker of joy, wouldn’t it be better to fan
that small flame into a roaring, glorious fire that fills our senses, our minds
and our souls with unabridged joy and happiness?
Step back and look at your bigger picture. Is this the life you want? Is this the life you expected, when you were
young and innocent and full of expectant wonder? Are you satisfied that you are following your
dreams, and your deathbed thoughts will not be filled with “what ifs” and “if
onlys”? Is this the life you want to
teach your kids to expect and be happy with?
Are you okay with “settling” with existence in this daily rut?
The more time that passes, the more I realize that, although
I have all the things I need to make it through life – a house, a vehicle,
food, an income – my life is not euphoric.
Yes, I enjoy my children, I enjoy my family, my friends, my hobbies, my
vacations, but overall there are a lot less euphoric moments than I would like
there to be. I don’t have the answer (I
hope you weren’t expecting one), but I know that becoming conscious of our
limited time on this earth, becoming aware that every moment counts, and that
the cliché is true – you only live once - can be the first steps on a path to
making changes TOWARDS a life of euphoria.
I am learning (finally, at 40) that I would rather live with less
“stuff” and more “moments”, less housework and more exploring. I would rather work less hours, and earn less
money, in exchange for more time with my kids and doing things that awaken my
soul.
Our lives won’t
change overnight, but we can start taking baby steps towards a place where the
moments of sheer joy will eventually outnumber the moments of monotony. I can’t wait.
Because I don’t believe this is all there is. I believe we were made to
live a life of euphoria.
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