Keep the joy of the moment

I definitely suffer from worrying about the future before it even happens. Many others can probably relate! These wise words were shared by a physician mom (Sarah Rose Wheatley Hartnett) on FB and I thought they was too lovely to not share.  

"I gave my first grader his new light up dinosaur shoes for the first day of school this morning. They are legitimately the best shoes ever, and little dude was over the moon in love with them. Then out of nowhere he started sobbing like his heart had broken. I asked what was wrong, and he said, "My birthday is next year, and I will grow, and on my birthday the shoes will be too small and I won't be able to wear them!"

So we sat and talked, and after he had calmed down I was able to help him understand that if we let ourselves be unhappy about things in the future that haven't even happened yet, we don't get to be happy about what we have right now. And then we are sad twice instead of just once.

And then I sat with myself for a bit, and I thought about how often my enjoyment of the moment is overshadowed by the inevitability of loss, fear of change, the bitterness of free floating guilt, or some other barrier my brain has manufactured to steal my joy.

So as the school year starts, I am going to think about those awesome dinosaur sneakers whenever I hold myself back from diving fully into the things that light me up.

The price of love is pain and loss, and that price can be very high. But we don't need to pay it up front, and we certainly don't need to pay it twice."

May we all do better at enjoying our current joy-filled moments and avoid catastrophizing about future events and potential losses. May we teach our dear children to do the same.