Don't Blink

I was watching the movie “The Shawshank Redemption” the other day for like the 30ll millionth time. I can’t get enough of Morgan Freeman’s voice as he narrates the story about a man wrongly convicted of murder and serving 20 years of 2 life sentences before he escaped the prison. The turning point of the movie (in case you live under a rock and haven’t seen it) is when the star is told his case for getting out of prison is overturned by the warden and he is placed in solitary for 2 months. He gets out and has a memorable scene with his friend about his life. His quote “get busy living or get busy dying” is hanging in the air when the movie concludes and he escapes and goes to live in Mexico with the warden’s money. The movie speaks of a guy who finally gets the big picture… He sees life for what it is. Figures out who he is and finally accepts what he has to do to make it work for him. Some people I suspect do this at very early ages. Some I suspect have to wait till they are a little older.

If we spend our time in our lives living at our jobs, taking care of children, with our heads in our Facebooks, living in our minds, we somehow miss the beauty of life. We spend our lives formulating a routine and doing what’s necessary until we wake up and our back hurts and our eyes aren’t as strong as they used to be and we decide that we have missed a big portion of what we were supposed to be doing previously. One of my favorite authors is a guy named Donald Miller. He wrote a book called A Million Miles in a Thousand years. I guess I’ve read it through about 3 times now because I keep finding more about what he was saying the first time. I didn’t really miss the point, but I did find new things to add to what I could retain. The main point of his book is about living life; writing a great story with your life that will inspire people and give you great memories to remember. I’m pretty sure I used to have the desire to try and please everyone I came into contact with, but I just am learning to ignore that barking dog in my psyche these days and just realize I might not have the 40 or so years left and I have got to put some ink on the page and stop staring at a blank canvas.

So I’ve deleted my Facebook account and I set my alarm early and I am running outside and not in the gym these days. I have a little internet and no cable T.V. (which btw I am not suggesting to anyone of you reading this) but I am making some small changes so I can focus on my work when it’s time to work, live more in the moment with my children and challenge myself to make an adventure out of life. 48 inch waistlines and early detection of heart diseases are not products of fly fishing on the Big Thomson in Colorado. A mini van is not a Jeep and The Grand Canyon was not a gift given to us to see in photographs. Life is greater than last night’s episode of American Idol, and our cousin’s posts about their colonoscopy on Twitter. Letters and cards from friends or relatives with real live stamps and time out of their days to tell you how important you really are to them are a thing of the past. If we invest in our life and the lives of others, we will find we enrich the days we have left with passion and a sense of purpose. Get busy living…or get busy dying… Damn right…