Hey Gang,
I’ve just had the joy of my daughter’s graduation, a pinnacle experience for us as parents and a huge achievement for Annie. We left Annie with her friends to enjoy a week of relaxation and ‘lasts’ as she wraps up her college experience. Our weekend ended with the U of M theater department’s senior showcase, a performance in preparation for the theater grads to perform on Broadway in front of booking and casting agents.
Again, highlight reel moments, celebrations, and applause excited me to get started with our first events, open the farm to guests, and prep for festivals. Let’s gooooooooooooo!
My wife, The Lovely Miss Janine, and I relived each moment on the way home, chatting, hoping, dreaming, and manifesting a future filled with more memorable moments for the kids and us.
We pulled into the driveway after just two business days off and a weekend away to find the yard out of control and desperately needing mowing, piles of laundry to do, the corn planter parts hadn’t come in, rain prevented weeding in the Fun Park, and 43 voicemails backed up like a log jam.
Children are seldom taught mindfulness. It is slowly making its way into elementary school curricula, but it is far from a practice. My patience wears thin even more quickly when there’s a delay, a hold-up, or a bump in the road.
Mindfulness is the practice of being fully connected to the present moment. One of my favorite quotes is, “Do what you can, with what you have where you are.” Sometimes, there isn’t a big celebration coming. You’re just looking at days and days and days of work, real work.
No matter what the highlight reel, real life, and the meaningful living therein lives in the space between the highlights. It’s hidden in the hours on the planter watching the sun go down, the endless fruit sorting while you chat with the team, the mowing, pulling weeds, working for days building the next attraction.
Even the mountaintop gets better when you are present. Life’s celebrations are better when you don’t answer your phone. I consciously let my calls go to voicemail over our daughter’s big weekend. I knew if I got into business mode, I’d miss out on sharing time with her. That small choice to be present made the weekend a richer experience for us.
Our time together is really all we have. There is much more space between highlights than highlights themselves, and we’d be foolish to ignore the time imbalance, to enjoy only those fleeting peaks.
Work for, practice for, live for, and be present for the pinnacle experiences, the big wins, and the celebrations, yet live deep and full and well together in the space between.
Have a great week,
Hugh
