Episode 220 - You Don't Need to Make the Most of Every Moment

Hi I'm Keith and welcome to Lighter Than You Started. It's Saturday and today I'd like to talk about a phrase that often sounds wonderfully positive. Make the most of it. It's something we hear from childhood. Enjoy every minute.

Don't waste the day. Make the most of the weekend. They're kind hearted sentiments. After all none of us want life to pass us by unnoticed. But I wonder if somewhere along the way those intelligent words have quietly become another expectation.

An expectation that every three days should be memorable. Every Sunday afternoon should become an adventure. Every weekend should be filled with experiences worth talking about on Monday. And if it isn't well perhaps we've somehow wasted it. It's a serious pressure isn't it?

Even our rest can begin to feel like something we have to do well. We start asking countless questions. Should I be going somewhere? Should I be making better use of today? Am I doing enough with my time?

And before long we've turned a quiet Saturday into another performance. The strange thing is some of our happiest memories weren't planned to become memories at all. They happened almost by accident. A conversation that lasted longer than expected. An evening that became fun because no one was trying too hard.

A walk with no destination. A cup of tea that somehow turned into an hour of putting the world to violence. At the time they probably didn't feel extraordinary. They simply felt comfortable. Perhaps that's because life doesn't always become meaningful through intensity.

Intensity. Sometimes it becomes meaningful through ease. Think about your favourite old jumper. Bobby isn't your favourite because it's the smartest thing you own or the most expensive or the newest. It's your favourite because of how it feels.

Because every time you put it on your shoulders relax almost without thinking. Perhaps Saturdays can be like that. Not days that need to impress us. Just days that quietly allow us to settle. There's something deeply reassuring about an ordinary day that our spray disruptors.

A day where the washing gets done. The shopping is put away. The windows are open for a while. A book is read for twenty minutes. Lunch is eaten without rushing.

Nothing particularly remarkable happens and yet by the evening you somehow feel more like yourself again. Nobody should achieve something spectacular but because you stopped trying to. Maybe we underestimate those days. Perhaps they do more for us than we realize. Perhaps they gently restore parts of us that constant activity quietly wears down.

So if today unfolds without grand plans without exciting stories without taking off every item you'd imagined It doesn't mean you've missed the day. It might just mean you've actually lived it. Calmly. Gently. Without asking it to become anything other than what it already is.

And maybe that's one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves from time to time. A day that doesn't have to justify itself. Today's thought for you. You don't need to make the most of every moment. Sometimes it's enough to simply be in it.

Thank you for sharing this moment with me and as always I hope you end today feeling lighter than you started. Go gently and I'll see you on the flip side tomorrow. You can now listen to the Lighter Than You Started podcast on Alexa. Simply say, Alexa, play the Lighter Than You Started podcast. Lighter Than You Started is a think of something publishing production.