I received the following on a card from my grandmother and I have had it displayed next to my bed since then. It really spoke to me.
Live Deep
Never stop learning, playing, or finding wonder in the world around you. Live the length of your life, but live the depth of it as well.
Travel Light
There is no use in carrying around worry and regret. They only weigh you down. Always keep yourself open to hope and to love. They give us wings.
Forgive Imperfections
In yourself and others. Imperfections keep things interesting. They’re the cracks where the light shines through.
Own Beautiful Things
And not just to keep in the drawer, tucked away for a perfect day. Surround yourself with things that make you happy, that remind you of the beauty all around us if we only keep our eyes open to it.
Make Mistakes
Follow detours. Sometimes it take an unexpected turn to help us find the life that is waiting for us around the bend. Trust yourself and the path that is meant for you.
Take Care of Yourself
And sometimes that means you need the ice cream. Be good to your body, but also your mind and spirit. You’re the only one who can.
Living the depth of our lives, I believe, is missed by so many especially in our country today. They are trying to reach a certain point in time or a certain status and all the while miss the opportunity of the here and now or the depth of their lives. None of us know what tomorrow will bring which transitions into the next section of the card. Life is too short to carry worry and regret. Now I realize this is much easier said than done at times. Worrying does not change the outcome of our lives it just weighs us down and regret is mean and evil. Hope and love make life so much richer! Both had depth to our lives. Regret takes me to the section on making mistakes. None of us our perfect and if we hold onto our mistakes or regret we miss the opportunity to see the beauty in the mistake. I would say most families that our living with an ill parent didn’t expect it or plan it, but there has been beauty in the trial. Obviously not every step in the journey has brought beauty, but in those unexpected moments beauty has emerged like a healed relationship or a new friendship.
Now on to the forgive the imperfections section. Isn’t so true that in the cracks of ourselves or our lives light does shine through. Many times it is not immediate, but as time goes on the reason and purpose becomes more clear. The beauty that can be found in our imperfections is priceless – you just need to focus on the beautiful things in life. I would argue that most beautiful things cannot be bought and we shouldn’t keep them hidden from the world. It is hard at times to reveal the beauty in our lives as it might leave us vulnerable or show a side that we have worked so hard to hide from the world. It is never to late to reveal a new beauty in our lives. For some this may mean all or nothing and for others it may mean baby steps to get to the end goal. The final life legacy is to take care of yourself and I think we do all need the ice cream in life sometimes. I think we all know we need to take care of our bodies and we are constantly sent messages from society about this. To me the harder part is the mind and spirit part on an individual basis. It is easy to not take care of or remember to take care of our mental and spiritual needs. The beauty in this is that everyone around us benefits from the results.
The challenge for you today is to determine how will you reveal the beauty in your life legacy. Will you try to achieve beauty in more than one of these sections or will focusing on just one take focused time and effort to reveal the beauty waiting to get out? It all seems so simply in a way, yet we fail daily in this country to achieve the beauty that is waiting to get out in so many of these sections.
Blog post written by Angela Bailey, Legacy Retreat Coordinator
