What would it feel like to love the life you have just the way it is and the way it is not?
Imagine loving life when you are in the doctor’s office, stuck in traffic, or even just sitting in your living room watching television.
There is no perfect situation for which we have to wait to be in love with life itself. There will be some days when we can’t reach that place of loving life – when we are in pain, our bank account is dwindling or other personal situations keep us in our sadness.
To know that no matter how we feel we can still find a love of life within us in the presence of such events empowers our legacy.
Someone once called these times the “inconveniences” of living. We need to sort for ourselves those that are just inconveniences and those moments that are significant.
In such significant moments, tell yourself, “There is an answer, there is a way.”
At other times, we can ask ourselves, can we be in love with living? All of its ups and downs? Can we know that our legacy is not what we leave behind in our wills?
Can we continue to remind ourselves that our larger legacy is in how we live our lives?
Every time we make amends to someone we have hurt, every time we hold back words of anger until we are calm within, every time we speak words of kindness and gratitude, we are leaving our legacy.
Author Maya Angelou said, “If you’re going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can’t be erased.”
We are making memories every day as we interact with one another. Our age gives us a perspective on the difference between living in love with life and always being loving.
We can’t help making mistakes, losing loved ones, going through the process of letting go of what we want to keep. But we can still love the life we live by being present to this moment now.
Leo Buscaglia wrote, “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
It is a love of living that allows us to see that the smallest of moments of life is our real legacy. It lives in the lives of the people we touch.
The Rev. Linda McNamar is a Laguna Woods Village resident.
