The Life You Have Imagined

We often hear people say "stop and smell the roses" or "live each day as if it were your last." I'm all for the philosophy of enjoying life, but I'd like to know who is going to handle all the daily drudgery while I'm out tripping through the tulips? While I'm smelling roses, who is going to be smelling--and cleaning--the litterbox? If I live each day like it's my last, there will be no clean laundry, dishes, or toilets in our house ever again.
Most of us know that we have to balance the fun things in life with the work that needs to get done. Getting something constructive accomplished usually provides more satisfaction than a day spent on the couch reading a book--and feeling guilty about it. Even the proponents of living life to the fullest have to earn money and see to the practical side of daily existence.
I guess I'd rather live in a way that if I died tomorrow, I'd have few regrets. To that end, I try to meet several goals every day:
--Do something for myself. It might be as small as reading the paper or as big as spending a couple days away with my college roommate--but it's something for me that I enjoy.
--Do something for someone else. I might hold a door open for an elderly lady, send a package to a soldier, or put a note in Fred's lunch bag. Knowing that someone else will get a smile from something I did makes my day better.
--Do a task I don't want to do. Ironing shirts, mowing the lawn, going to the dentist--I don't want to do it, but it's the discipline of accomplishing those things that gives me the most satisfaction.
--Communicate with the important people in my life-on regular days, special days, for no particular reason. By phone, text, e-mail, in person--any contact at all. I put this one last, but it's really the biggest priority to me, my favorite way to smell the roses.
So if I die tomorrow, I will feel pretty good about the way I'm leaving things. But just in case, I'll keep eating dessert first.

**I will be off for a day or two--heading to Elk Mound to be Katie's lawn girl!