Busy people are not taking life seriously

Be present. Live a little. A short story about monkey bars and tight schedules.

Vincent ran up those stairs, to go down the Big Slide, over and over again. That wooden tower, housing the slide, seemed a bit scary to me. Tall, narrow and tailored to toddlers. Not horror-scary, mind you. Just that special kind of scary only a parent will recognize. But I went up with him, trying to keep up while simultaneously arching my back well beyond its intended range, tip-toeing on those teeny-tiny steps.

Wee. Going down, Big Slide did not disappoint. It was good fun, to be sure. Obviously, my two-and-a-half’er is getting back up on it and it damn well better go fast. Me—I’m feeling slightly less excited to go back up. Let the kid run amuck. And as I’m standing there, watching from beneath, reciprocating all the Hi Dad!’s from the tower, it dawned on me how much he’s grown lately. Soon to be in kindergarten, and here I am, thinking he still needs to be watched over, like he still can’t stand on his own two.

I’m probably just like every other parent with a kid his age. But perhaps I’m not paying attention like I should be. I mean, this shouldn’t come as a surprise—I ought to have noticed before, right?

The consultancy I’ve recently started has been booked solid for months now. Focus in its plural form is absent from my vocabulary, and I’ve been singularly obsessed with Work for a hot minute now. But perhaps I’m not paying attention like I should be. They say it’s not about the end goal; it’s how you get there. That life is what happens to you, while you’re busy making other plans. I tend to forget that. So I put my phone in my pocket. In my jacket. In the stroller, over by the benches. Leaving me free to run amuck with my kid, smiling and waving at the loving mother of my child. I took a moment to actually live a little today. Be in the now. Prepare for tomorrow, by enjoying today. I’ve got looming deadlines; a pipeline waiting to be slotted into my schedule; all that malarkey. But that’s tomorrow.

Busy people are not taking life seriously.

This little nugget popped up in my News Feed earlier this evening. I’ve been blessed with good health, decent standards of living and the means to provide for my family. Seeing Vincent on the playground today, made me realize something. I’m sometimes (too often, ed.) working 12-hour days, six or seven days a week, leaving little to no time to actually be with the ones I’m doing it for. That’s not taking life seriously, that’s pissing it all away. Starting now, I’ll be doing a few more rounds on the monkey bars before I go to work. Pleasure before business, I guess you could say.