Slurp It Up

                       If I had my life to live over...
       If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I'd relax. I'd limber up. I would be sillier than I was this time. I would
take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would take
more trips. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I
would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more
actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.
     

 You see, I am one of those people who live sensibly and sanely, hour
after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had it to
do over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing
else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years
ahead of each day.
      I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a
thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had it
to do over again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had my life to
live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and I would stay
that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more
merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.
                                                                                       Nadine Satir

     A great many people live their life as if it were in a black-and-white        

film, devoid of color-little excitement, limited choices, minimal
fun, taking few risks, very predictable, having no edge, and certainly
no gusto.
      The poem by 86-year-old Nadine Satir clearly announces that if
given a second chance, she would live her life very differently. I think
she speaks for many of us.
      Many of us are missing the banquet that life has provided. We see
 only the neutral to negative side of life. Maybe next time, as Satir states,
we could live life a little less safely and add a bit more color to it. We
could choose to see life as an opportunity to be lived fully, rather than
a place where we need to survive.
     "Thank God it's Friday" seems to be our declaration of survival.
 We need to slurp out the color, the excitement that life offers. We
need to be willing to take a chance, to risk losing what is, before the
color will come back into our lives.
     Think of today as your second chance.
    

How can you slurp up the excitement of life in technicolor when
you're choosing to live in the mundane black-and-white details of life?
    
We need to have a vision; we need to know what a balanced
person or lifestyle looks like before we can change and "do" that behavior.