My good friend Sam gave me a book for my birthday called "One Month to Live". Funny. Actually the book poses an interesting challenge - 30 days to a regret-free life. The basic premise is that if you had one month to live, what would you do differently? Noting that the quantity of life we have is finite - but because we either don't want to acknowledge our mortality or perhaps because it may not be "in your grille" so to speak, we typically squander the time we have. We fail to look critically at ourselves and at the infrequent investments we make in the quality of our lives.
For example. I usually go out on the weekend for a fairly long bike ride. The distance covered often becomes the measure of the adventure, or how fast I covered it in. I soak up as much outdoors as I can - trees, streams and wildlife. It only figures the more miles traveled the more of that I can absorb, right? This weekend I decided to invest in ride quality - a much shorter ride, basically free-spinning and coasting as much as possible. Untimed. I decided I had time to explore off-pavement on a trail through a field with pine trees that wound down to Goose Creek and back again. When the ride was over, I took inventory.
The ride was good - I enjoyed it more than my usual ride. And I will accept the challenge. It may not be the brand new key to happiness, but I only have one pair of brand new roller skates. Thanks, Sam.
