How’s Your Adventure Going?
Think of it this way . . .
We may very well be a little taken aback, but still amazed, at someone’s display of passionate enthusiasm for life. Or, we might wonder what’s wrong with them. All of those were the reactions my mother got wherever she went. One-speed Nonnie, we called her. Full of nervous energy, and she never met a stranger! A few may have seen it as ridiculous or a little over-the-top (they’re
to be excused). But she meant well and could make friends quickly. I mean, from the moment she met you, you felt relaxed and comfortable. Some felt that she was a breath of fresh air. It was as Confucius said, “Wherever you go, go with your whole heart.” Jim Elliot says it this way: “Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”
So many folks, on the other hand, seem totally preoccupied and doggedly focused on the all-fired seriousness of their stuff that they don’t have time to stop and smell the roses. Have we so emphasized our right to privacy that we quit being aware of the needs and/or talents, or even winsome differentness, of other, or because these extremely serious folks just want us to leave them alone? That doesn’t sound like a passionate enthusiasm for life, does it? Too, I think they have their guard up because they’re afraid of coming across as less than perfect; that it would be like failing if they let their hair down and happened to make a faux pas (God forbid!).
“It is impossible to live without failing at something. Unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you failed by default.”– J. K. Rowling
To her credit, my mother’s disposition would not, could not, allow her to stop being who she was – at times, pretty silly, but it was a refreshingly lite-silly. It was inherent in her character that life is what you make it – that if you give it your best happy shot, good things will come back to you. Here’s a fitting quote for her from the movie Hook starring Robin Williams as Peter Pan:
“To live, to live will be an awfully big adventure!”
– John D.
