You Better Get To Playin'

"Some people drift through their entire life. They do it one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time. It happens so gradually they are unaware of how their lives are slipping away until it's too late." ~Mary Kay Ash

Last weekend I spent some time with the 4 year old who I've deemed Little Cowboy. He told me his mom liked it when he learned things (but did clarify sometimes his mom didn't like things that he learned from my Little Brother....shock of shocks). Well, this weekend Little Cowboy and I learned something together.

We were working over at the barn and he could tell that we were getting close to wrapping things up. He ran over and asked if we were leaving, and I told him not quite yet. He said, "Well I still want to play, so can we stay longer?" and proceeded to negotiate and analyze the amount of play time he would get. Later, the same thing happened at my parents' house. We got in from the barn and his mom told him he had 5 minutes until it was time to take a bath. This sent him back into negotiation mode (I expect him to be either an attorney or a hostage negotiator when he grows up) about how that was just not long enough for he and I to play farm. She looked at him and said, "You're wasting time, you better get to playin'."

I thought about that comment and realized, that's completely applicable to life. I waste too much time doing other things when I really should get to playin'. How many times are we guilty of not living in the moment--of trying to negotiate more time, or planning more things or worrying about what we have to do next--instead of just getting to playin'? When we do this, we end up missing the fun in life, and instead spend all of our play time trying to get more of it, or to get better things to do it with, or whatever it is.

Instead, if we get to playin' and live in the moment, and really take in the time that we do have, we'll be so much better off. We won't miss moments, and we won't miss opportunities, and we won't miss our lives. Because I'm learning that if a person isn't conscious of this, missing life can be pretty easy to do.

Hopefully Little Cowboy can learn this lesson while he's four, and not take until he's in his mid (okay, LATE) 20's to figure it out. He strikes me as being ahead of the curve.