carpe diem!

some mornings, when I wake up, I do some exercise. sometimes running, sometimes biking, usually some pushups, squats, situps and other ab stuff. obviously running and biking are most efficient when you go fast; but sometimes it bothers me that most of the other exercises mentioned above work best when you go slow. it is a fight for me to slow down. my tendency is to go as fast as I can: get this thing done and move onto the next. but I realized that when I do that, I miss out. I'm not fully there.
the other night I was lying in bed reading a story to a young child. as habit would go, I was going as fast as I could (while still making the words understandable and sort of maintaining a 'bed-time-ish-atmosphere'), in an effort to finish this task and get on to the ones at hand. but then it struck me. this moment ain't gonna be here forever. she'll be grown someday - soon even passing the time for bedtime stories - and that might not be part of my life anymore. whatever happened to the here & now? living in this moment?
PEOPLE, WHEN YOU LIVE FAST, YOU DO NOT LIVE NOW. (I believe there are exceptions to that statement, like if you are running a marathon, or you're in any kind of race, or playing most sports, etc, but in general that is true.) when you live fast, to get the most things done, you lose out on all those things. we can't have both quantity and quality: what will you pick?
this year, The Nester, and Blair over at Wild and Precious are both choosing SLOW as their word for 2014, and the more I've been thinking about it, the more I see that we really want the same thing. sure, we chose two different ways of saying it, but what we really want is to live fully, to be fully present in this moment. we don't want to be rushing through our days trying to do as many meaningless things as possible: we want to give as much meaning as possible to our days. do less, be more. (that doesn't work when you're going fast.)  (While this is how it appears to me, sorry to Myquillyn and/or Blair if I have attached meaning to their word other than they have intended!)

I want every breath to proclaim the glory of my God and King! you miss the little things when you're going fast; so take a deep breath, slow down, and enjoy that story you're reading to a young one. or that meal you're making. don't be in such a hurry to go wherever you're going that you miss the gorgeous sunset that God put there - JUST FOR US! open your eyes to each moment and thank God for it!
blessings upon your day!~em