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Living What Is Instead of What Should Be

Morning! Well actually I guess it is after noon so good afternoon...

I want to carry on with the theme from yesterday a bit where I was trying to spend my day moment by moment --living in the now.  I came across this great quote written on Glennon Doyle Melton's Facebook page which I found through reading another awesome blog I want to talk about tomorrow(you can find Glennon's blog here and I invite you to go exploring!) 

"When we live in a picture of what should be, instead of what is, we add a layer of guilt on top of what is already very difficult.  And that makes it almost impossible.  It's extremely counter cultural to admit that life is not perfect.  I think that people are desperate to admit together that life is messy, and that marriage is hard, and that parenting is excruciating sometimes.  And that doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong.  It's hard because it is supposed to be".

I should have this on a t-shirt I think, or someone should set it to music as my theme song.  Just this morning I was texting an old high school friend of mine who now lives in Italy and I confessed I had been off work five months.  I told him I had no sense of balance any more and seeing all his fantastic pictures of him relaxing and at play with his family, and shots of him eating fantastic dinners and flying places in Europe seemed like he had the perfect life.  Within seconds he asked for my phone number and I jokingly gave it to him....telling him to pass it on to anyone who might want a slightly off tilt person with my skill set. 

Then my phone rang.

I had my hair in a towel  and was trying to get my little one ready for school ....and I was so tempted to hit "ignore" on my phone.  But instead I answered. 

We talked for 20 minutes about how he works hard and enjoys his free time.  How his flying is for work and means more time away from his family.  How his original move to Europe when we were in our last year of high school was his way to escape a messy home life, how patients he sees often don't have money to pay him, how if something were to happen to him---he got sick---he hurt himself---he would have to return to Canada as he works for himself there and would have nothing to fall back on. How he lives life--this life--right now and wants to share the good parts of life online with his friends in Canada, and I realized it is not to make us feel bad---but to remind us that while life is hard ...there are also times when you can enjoy yourself, be good to yourself, and live.

What do you think about what Glennon Doyle Melton says?  Where does this image of "the perfect life" come from?  How do you define a perfect life and is it even possible to achieve it?

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