On further reflection...

I wrote yesterday's post about the need to create a memory every day at the very end of my day. After I shut down my computer, my head kept spinning in different directions about the topic.  

I've fallen off the daily gratitude journaling in recent weeks (months?) but I had the thought that gratitude journaling has a common purpose.  By taking time to reflect at the end of the day to identify things for which I am grateful, I also allow myself to remember each of those occurrences.  The remembering has the impact of creating a memory.  Actually, it has the impact of creating several memories--exactly however many things about which I journal.  Then I don't have to worry any longer about wasted days.  Abundantly grace-filled days flow naturally, every day.

At the same moment, I recollected that when I was writing posts for this blog daily, I was also creating memories--ones particularly valuable to me.  The purpose of this blog has been to serve as a shared platform for me to wrestle with the questions that I encounter on the path of my intention to live consciously.  

On tests of motivation, I consistently score highest for learning and growing and making a contribution. (I've never understood being motivated about getting stuff.) On the days that I write in this blog, I am learning and growing, and, for those who receive value from the posts, I am making a contribution.  From my perspective, that is the stuff from which real memories are made.  I am receiving a gift of value and giving one.  

Last night I restarted recording gratitude in my journal again.  I was sure to include that I wrote in my blog, and I learned something about myself.  Furthermore, I had an entry for the side of the journal in which I record gifts that I've given.

A Wasted Day

During a media interview this morning, I heard a man say, "A day without a memory is a wasted day."  He really grabbed my attention.

Almost simultaneously I had two follow-on thoughts:

1. Most of my days are consumed with almost mindless routine.
2. In order to have a day that isn't wasted, I will have to find something memorable in the sea of routine days.  At least for some moment during the day, I will have to be conscious of something that is memorable.

I have to admit, I had this sinking feeling that many years of my life must have been wasted with the same routine.  Get up, bathe, brush my teeth, do my make-up, stretch, make coffee, make oatmeal, race out the door so I am not late.  Once I get to work, there is another routine.  At 7:30 I boot up the computer.  While that is happening, take my lunch to the refrigerator and maybe go to the restroom. Then settle in to answer dozens of emails before I start into back-to-back meetings.  You get the point. My whole day is that way.  Somewhere around 5:30, I sink into my chair and think that I really ought to do some creative work, but usually that is dismissed because I am too tired to be creative.

There are exceptional days. In fact this has been an exceptional week. On Tuesday, I received an award for a piece of change management work of which I am very proud--three years of focus...and someone noticed. Wednesday was annual performance review time, and for the first time in five years, I felt like someone actually noticed my work.  (Could it be because of the award I received the day before?) On Thursday, my favorite teammate--and maybe my best-ever co-worker--left our organization to take a different job.  Friday my retina specialist reported that the impact of my surgery 15 months later has been sustained. I also received an apology that meant a lot. Today I had lunch with a friend, and we talked a lot. Then, I started cleaning off my desk--now that is an endeavor worth remembering.

The funny thing about this exceptional week is that when I started to write this, I thought, "I can't even remember yesterday, except that I know I didn't stop."  Then I focused on each day and discovered it had been a week of pretty memorable days.  I think that in order to have memories we have to focus our intention on giving attention to what is memorable.  I have to choose to make a memory.  Without this thought, I might have let this week slip by like so many others--lots of wasted days.

It also occurs to me that I might even mix up the routine a little bit and create so memories.

So, tomorrow, I will choose a memory.  Monday I will choose a memory.  In the process, I will assure that my life is not wasted, but instead is rich with memories.

Postal Time Travel

We are now down to two days until Christmas, and Postal Magic arrived in my mailbox today.  My mailbox is more appropriately sized for the volume of snail mail that we got two or three decades ago, so most days the single catalog or bill that I receive is lost in the space.

But, today...today...was a bonanza.  Most of my friends used the Saturday before Christmas to mail cards, and my mailbox was full today.  I couldn't even wait until I got to my apartment to start opening the cards.  One was from a colleague who retired 13 months ago: it reminded me how much I'd loved working with her.  I am also grateful to still have her in my life.  Another was from a colleague on a grueling work project five years ago.  If misery loves company, that is how we bonded. We laughed and commiserated over dinner and a glass of wine many evenings. I've moved to other employment, but we are still friends. 

Still another card came from a friend of almost 30 years.  As I opened it, I remembered cross-country skiing at Christmas in the mountains together 25 years ago. A few days ago, a card came from my college roommate from even longer ago. With it came memories of both of our weddings, one right before Christmas and the other in January.

I've written before about the powerful ability we have as human beings to "time travel"--to really be in another time and place through our memories.  I receive a few e-cards, but they don't match the magic of a card with a handwritten note that initiates time travel.  This evening after traveling over the years and the good times with my friends in my memories, it occurred to me how very important it is to be truly present to this year's celebrations for today I am making the memories that will fall out of cards 20 years in the future.