Live Like you were dying

Most everyone has heard this song by Tim McGraw. It's a powerful ballad that is about living in the face of death, and McGraw recently dedicated it to Toby Keith, a country music artist who passed away in early February, at a concert. McGraw cried while singing the song, and the audience cried with him not just because of the loss of Keith but because of the power of the truth in the words. 

We spend so much of our lives in day-to-day minutiae. Going to work. Cooking dinner. Cleaning the house. Watching television. Preparing for the next day's work. And then the cycle starts all over again the next day. Oftentimes, the weekends are our time to relax and veg out in front of the television, go grocery shopping, play catch with the kids in the backyard, have a drink with our friends, and maybe take in a movie. While the time is meant to be relaxing, it's still just the minutiae of our days.

Where is the excitement? What do we look forward to? Do we have those moments of sheer joy, the ones that make us elated that we're alive? Do we go out of our way to make memories instead of just scrolling through our phones in our downtime? Do we grab each moment as though it's precious, and do we realize just how precious they really are? 

Not all of life can be about grabbing the brass ring. We can't stop what we're doing to go skydiving or parasailing. But what we can do is create moments that are about grabbing life. Maybe it's a watching a sunset or watching a baby calf be born. It could be taking a horseback ride or a walk in the woods. It could be hunting for shells on the beach, sitting around a bonfire telling stories, or going on a hayride. Maybe it's riding in the back of a pickup truck down an old country road or going to the ballet. 

There are so many opportunities to enjoy life. Not all of them involve a lot of money, but they do involve doing more than just sitting on our sofas while letting our phones entertain us. What little changes could we do to make memories each day? What can we do to appreciate this life while we have it? We need to embrace the here and now and make time to be a part of life instead of watching it pass us by.