Blink to Wink: Embracing the Greater Things in Life
It happens so often, I have learned to expect it. I can sense when it is coming. After I tell someone the crazy thing my four-year-old just said. After that stranger in the grocery store gushes at my 7 month old’s smile. I can see it coming. They will smile, give a small sigh, and then say, “soak it up, it goes by in the blink of an eye.”
It would be easy to get tired of hearing that cliché preached to me over and over, but I am thankful for the reminder. My job gives me the unique opportunity to regularly sit with people in some of their hardest moments, like when they are dying or grieving the loss of someone they love. Every time I head home from one of those moments, the brevity of life, once again, comes into full focus. When I open the door to our home I go straight to my family, scoop them up, and hold them a bit tighter. A bit longer. In those moments, priorities seem to iron out clearly. I am worried less about what I didn’t get done at work. I’m not as concerned what that person said about me. I’m reminded life is too short to be weighed down by things that don’t bring the most joy and meaning to the few moments we have.
“life is too short to be weighed down by things that don’t bring the most joy”
I wish so much that I could maintain that clarity all the time! But alas, usually the next morning I’m back to worrying about the work that waits on my desk, and how to smooth things over with the guy who is upset with me for who-knows-what. Back to filling my few moments with what I tend to call, ‘lesser things.’
‘Lesser things’ are to each their own. When we list what is most important in our lives, they do not make it on that list, or we find them very far at the bottom. The ‘greater things’ (clever, I know), are the things that would be at the tip top of that list. They are the answers I will give if I am asked on my death bed, “Chase, what do you wish you had spent more time doing? Who do you wish you had spent more time with?”
Can I tell you secret? That deathbed question is one of the most important questions one could ever answer. And the trick is to answer it as honestly, as often, and as soon (i.e. the farther from your actual death bed as possible) as you can!
“That deathbed question is one of the most important questions one could ever ask.”
They say, “it goes by in a blink of an eye.” I don’t like that. A blink is such a thoughtless thing. Blinks happen with no intention. They happen and no one notices. Just, ‘blink’ and its gone. Who knows how many times I’ve blinked while writing this post, and I haven’t noticed one. (well… I’m noticing them now that we are talking about it, but you get the point.)
This blog is about changing a thoughtless, unnoticed ‘blink’ of a life into something that is intentional and focused on the ‘greater things.’
A wink. It is just as brief as a blink. But it is playful, intentional, and hard to miss. This blog is our effort to make our journey much more. We are going to dive into the tools, strategies, and mindsets that will help us stay focused. It’s time to wake up and claim the most from life! We want that for our lives and our families. For our children to look back on these rapidly passing years and say it was good and full of goodness. We want it for you as well. We hope and pray that this will be a space we can all help each other to “soak it up, because it goes by in the blink the wink of an eye.”