I couldn’t believe my ears…
Last weekend Ali and I decided to paint our daughters’– Elliana and Isla– room. (The color turned out WAY wrong but that’s another story…)
We added a strip of chalkboard paint and so my six-year-old daughter and I have been playing hangman every night before bed. Quality time!
While we were painting, a song came on the radio by Meghan Trainor. The chorus said “If I was you I would want to be me too.”
Really?!
The girls happened to be in the room when the song came on and it hit me… these are the kinds of messages that surround us. We hear it on the radio. We see it on Facebook when people post the best moments of their lives and are essentially saying “If I were you I would want to be me too.”
We are bombarded by the same message through television commercials, TV advertisements and every other marketing message.
We’re trained to believe that the other person has it all and we should expect the same too. It’s easy for them and, dammit, it should be easy for me too.
But life is hard.
Getting what they have… or what we perceive that they have… And what we want doesn’t mean that struggle disappears. It doesn’t heal relationships or help you lose weight or help you grow as a person. Only you can do that through
discipline
and work
and effort
and failure
and struggle
and overcoming obstacles.
It’s a grind.
Along the way, your car will break down.
You’ll fail at goals.
Loved ones will pass away.
And when you get “there”, don’t be surprised if it’s not all you’d imagined. Because once you get there, you’ll still want to get to the next level.
There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s called ambition.
But here’s the point…
1) Be who you want to be now. Work on your relationships, improve your diet, work out more, invest in other people, and love yourself. Those won’t change if you get all of the things you want.
2) Enjoy the journey. The journey will be a grind. Even if you get “there” you’ll still have to work really hard to make money and pay the bills and be fit and have strong relationships with your spouse and family. Money and fame and prestige won’t change that.
So enjoy the moments sitting on the floor just before bedtime playing hangman on the chalkboard painted wall in your daughters bedroom.
In those simple moments I think about my future self and say, “if I was you, I’d wanna be me too.”
