Water: treading or savoring

It’s the start of rainy season here in Florida and when the rains started yesterday afternoon, I grabbed the camera and headed out to see if I could find a picture that used the rain water within it. First sign of rain or stormy weather drives some people indoors where they just put things on hold until the sun reappears but I choose to continue the adventure, getting a little wet in the process. I ended up with this pic of a tiny little flower cradling a water drop in the palm of its hand … savoring the moment.

I guess the phrase “treading water” is derived from a genuine practice of staying afloat in water in an upright posture. But these days most of us would ascribe a different meaning to it. In fact I have come across so many people who at any moment in time are simply treading water … staying afloat but doing sweet little else towards adding value into their life.

It’s a shame really because it tells me what I already knew … that most of us go through life thinking that “there is always a tomorrow” and behaving as if time has no value. I am pretty confident in saying that I think almost all of us understand that time is a finite item. One day it does indeed run out.

Imagine how you would behave is you found out that at noon tomorrow you would be gone from this world. How differently would you play out those final 24 hours?

But it is the unknown aspect of “when” that makes many of us behave as if it won’t be tomorrow.

And yet if that aspect of “unknown” was applied to almost anything else in our lives, we would still behave differently. For example, if you had no idea if you had any money left in the bank, would you run out and blow the $200 in your wallet on a pair of shoes? Or if standing in a desert would you use your last bottle of water to get the dust off your shoes without knowing where the next water hole is?

We can’t take every day as if it were our last … the intensity would burn us out and paranoia would reign. But it is also important to keep water-treading days to a minimum and spend as much time as we can with those we love, or doing things we love, or whatever it is that moves this adventure forward.

Whatever your week does to you, I hope you enjoy the adventure and choose to savor, rather than tread. ?