Dash of Sass: Stop Rewinding & Fast Forwarding & Just PAUSE!

Quotes of the Day:

We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are. ~Bill Watterson

Quit worrying about how everything is going to turn out. Live one day at a time; better yet, make the most of this moment. It’s good to have a big – picture outlook, to set goals, to establish budgets and make plans, but if you’re always living in the future, you’re never really enjoying the present in the way God wants you to. ~ Joel Osteen

Make the most of every moment. Get excited about every little thing. Why not? Why not have your wonderful moment of excited anticipation? Why not be happy NOW? ~Bethenny Frankel

The Single Woman Says:

As you know, today is Inauguration Day in the U.S., and there was a wonderful little moment that happened during the Inauguration that brought a tear to my eye and joy to my spirit. As President Obama exited the Capitol following his inauguration speech, he paused. Stopped. Looked back over Capitol Hill. Other people kept hustling and bustling all around him, some stopped to look at him curiously to see what he was doing, and still he hesitated. “I want to look out one more time,” he said. “I’ll never see this again.”

What a profound moment. Regardless of where you happen to stand politically, anyone can find the beauty in the simple moment of reflection and awe you can see in the President’s face. The President. A man who is arguably the busiest man on earth. On what might possibly be one of the busiest days of any president’s reign, Inauguration Day, he stopped to marvel in the MOMENT. Though people around him were rushing past him, though he had places to go and people to see, though he had handlers and bodyguards and staff members standing by to whisk him off to the next stop on his itinerary, he paused. Maybe to capture one last mental image of the excitement, the joy, the waves of ecstatic people clapping and cheering enthusiastically. Maybe to soak up the significance of the day. Or maybe just to freeze-frame the moment in his mind to look back on for years to come. Maybe all of the above, or none of the above. But the point is…he PAUSED. He didn’t race off to his next commitment without paying proper respect to the present moment. And what a beautiful reminder it was.

If the President of the United States can stop what he’s doing in the middle of Inauguration Day to enjoy the moment, why can’t we do it in our own lives? He wasn’t obsessing over the speech had just given. He wasn’t stressing over being late to his next stop. He was simply BEING. LIVING. MARVELING. This moment – we’ll never see it again. Things will change. Friends will move away. Our lives will evolve; people will be added…people will be taken away. We’ll get married. We’ll have kids. We’ll change jobs, or careers. We’ll get older. We’ll get wiser. We’ll stop taking as many risks, or start taking more of them. We’ll experience great loss and great happiness. But the point is: THIS version of ourselves, THIS version of our lives, THIS moment…is fleeting. So today I urge you to pause for a moment in your work and worry and self-improvement and daily tasks and just marvel at your life; the beautiful, wonderful, imperfect work in progress that it is. Appreciate the people around you. Give thanks for the dreams and obstacles and challenges in front of you. And fall in love with the unfinished version of you that you are right now. And most of all, take a moment to pause and look out one more time. You’ll never see this again.