Take Life In

I originally wrote this post a few months ago on a road trip, but I thought I would bring this topic to the front of my mind once again. Check it out...

It’s day two of our four day journey to Cooperstown, New York. This morning we left Roanoke, Virginia on a 5 hour trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Usually on car rides I have to find ways to entertain myself-- listen to music, color, read, sleep, creep on social media. I’ll do just about anything except watch the passing trees outside of the car window, but today just happened to be an exception.

About an hour into our trip the scenery changed from suburban cities to the rural country. Normally I’m not much on driving through the country for what seems like years, but if you could have only seen the Blue Ridge Mountains on this beautiful day. With the shadows of clouds dancing around on them, it was as if it was something straight out of a movie. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

After staring at them for awhile I came to this conclusion: How many times in my life have I been so busy and unaware that I missed out on the little things in life such as this? The beautiful things in life that are always there. I, as well as many of you, live a fast paced life. I spend so much time on the go that when I’m not going I’m thinking about the next time I will be and I end up missing the simple things that matter the most.

I’m preaching to myself more than anyone because it’s as if I go and go and then when I sit down I’m checking social media to see what someone else is doing instead of breathing in what’s around me. Time is fleeting and the people around you and the scenery around you may not always be there. It’s important to take time out of our packed lives and take in what’s around us. Take in the family dinners, the road trips, the baseball games (in my case). Take in the friend outings, the football games, the game nights. Take in the mountains, the ocean, the lakes.

These are just a few examples of the things that end up giving you some of the best memories. Such a simple thing to write about today, but it happens to be one of the most important.

-LG