So, I’m sitting here in my living room staring at the cover of a coffee table book about Paris. This isn’t just any coffee table book – it’s Monumental Paris, a ginormous tome with 218 full-color illustrations, 6 fold-open spreads, and a signed print. It is, simply, stunning. It is also, save for a quick peek on Christmas, unopened.
Why I haven’t opened it? It’s not because I don’t like Paris. In fact, I LOVE Paris and, ever since we traveled there this fall, have been dreaming and scheming ways to transplant our whole family there, or at least visit again soon. Yet, here I’ve got the means to visit Paris in my mind anytime I want, and I’m not even buying a ticket.
It’s not that I don’t want to open it… I do. I think about opening it all the time. I keep seeing it there and make plans to curl up on my couch and absorb every last gorgeous image. But it’s not happening.
And it suddenly occurs to me that this is a pattern of mine, putting off doing something or wearing something or using something because I want to save it or make sure it is super special.
Case in point:
I often “save” my wool running socks instead of wearing them because once I wear them, they’ll be inaccessible to me for the next 5 or 6 days until I do laundry.
Same goes for my favorite cozy undershirts.
I rarely light candles even though I love them because then they’ll run out more quickly.
I am guilty of keeping a set of cloth napkins I absolutely loved unused in my dining room hutch for 8 years because I knew they’d never be as crisp and beautiful again. (I finally used them on Christmas day this year.)
I buy beautiful journals and then don’t write in them because I don’t want to “ruin them.”
Three years ago I spent a Pottery Barn gift card on the softest throw on the planet, but have only used it twice because I don’t want it to get ruined.
And now this thing with the Monumental Paris book. I know soaking in those beautiful images will be overwhelmingly beautiful and special and part of me wants that experience to still be ahead of me. Weird, I know. And completely not in-line with my goal of living in the present as much as possible.
So, today I’m going to change that.
Today is the day I get cozy on my couch, spread that super soft throw over my lap, light a candle, and drink in each and every page of that book. Oh, and I think I’ll wear my wool socks and favorite undershirt while I’m at it. Perhaps while taking notes in one of my new journals and eating a snack resting on one of those gorgeous napkins.
Because as I tell my coaching clients all the time, life is happening right now. As in, this very moment.
So, what are you waiting for?