Nine: Enjoy it Right This Second!

How many times have you been with someone for an event, a dinner, a life celebration and everything pauses for the group ‘selfie’? It is an interesting phenomenon to observe. Everyone is enjoying themselves and all stops in order to take a picture. Maya Rudolph is a well known comedian, Saturday Night Live (SNL) alumni and world renowned actress. She does not take selfies, is not on social media and prefers to spend her time with her four children and family instead of taking photos to post. Her words here remind us to savor the seconds in our days, stop taking pictures to remember things…enjoy this second!

I wonder what our ancestors would think about the amount of time we spend documenting our lives instead of living them? I attended a wedding that stopped so the maid of honor could take a photo and post it. I saw a funeral documented to update a website. And I have been asked more than once to take a group photo so people could post it for all their “family back home” to see it. Great idea to share things, does it have to be done right now?

I appreciate Maya’s words here, reminding us that life is to be lived, not just posted. We need to tell the people we care about that we care about them, not post photos of what we want them to see. Time is our greatest gift, being there, sharing ourselves, making the choices to DO the things that matter not just post about the things we want people to think matter to us. Maya gave birth to her fourth child and realized that the six days and nights on for her SNL job was not conducive to being with her family. She she left that role and more then she ever imagined opened up for her career…and she gets to raise her children not just see photos posted by someone else.

I know someone who posts to a blog everyday for years may not be the best person to be telling people to go out and do, don’t just post. My goal over these years has been to share my thoughts and wisdom related to a piece of my art. I have only eight more pieces to create and post before I hit one thousand…let’s work together to live our lives not just post about our lives. Creating all this work has changed my perspective and my skills. I look forward to doing more, yet for now I need to finish those other eight posts to reach my goal. So stay tuned!