Live Your Life

Want to know one of my all-time, all-time, so-very-favorite tv shows?

Early Edition.

Did you ever see that one? It's the series where Gary Hobson receives tomorrow's newspaper today, so he races around Chicago saving people's lives after reading about their mishaps/accidents/murders in tomorrow's newspaper.

Well all that responsibility made poor ol' Gary (the handsome Kyle Chandler) a nervous wreck. Often. All those fast-paced attempts to save peoples' lives while risking his own? Crazy scary stuff.

After awhile, that kind of a lifestyle would make anybody a loony, murmuring mess.

But the end of one episode returns to me often. Gary discovered an old trunk which the man, now deceased, who'd had Gary's 'job' for years, had left for him to find. Gary, with his two friends, pried open the large trunk, imagining it was full of answers to the whole early newspaper edition thing. Or treasure maybe.

But instead, a crumpled scrap of paper lay at the bottom with these words scrawled in pencil: "Live your life."

What marvelous advice! It was as though the old man was telling Gary, "In the midst of saving people's lives, don't forget to live your own life. Don't allow your days to pass by without being awake to how you are spending them. And remember to carve out a life of your own. Pay attention before your life, in a blur, is over."

Like I said, I think of that often. And that's why, today, I'll walk, not run, while I feed the birds in the backyard and wash the dishes and sit on the porch while I read. While I hang wet laundry on my wooden racks, put away groceries and clean the house I'll enjoy God in the middle of each.

I'll do those everyday tasks and pay attention to their simple lessons and choose to enjoy it all, rather than enjoy part and resent or just tolerate the rest, missing out on what could have added joy to my day. To my life.

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