Last week I wrote about a book called 20,000 and Counting that affected me profoundly and gave me a good kick in the pants. Since writing the post, I read the book twice more. I want the concepts he talked about in it to become as natural to me as breathing.
I’ve thought a lot about the incredible wisdom he crammed into that short, life-changing (for me) book. The author, Robert D Smith, claims it’s important we understand that we’ve been dying since the day we were born. I know that well. You may have heard me say something I repeat often: Birth is a death sentence. None of us get out of here alive.
Morbid or not, it is a fact of life. Understanding that helped me calmly and unemotionally explore and choose my options when I got that crummy cancer diagnosis a few years back. Understanding that also helps me be more fearless than many people who inhabit this planet. The worst that could happen (death) doesn’t scare me. At all. (Although I’m not looking forward to a painful death, so I hope I’m here one moment, and then gone the next.)
There is a chapter in 20,000 and Counting called Eat Dessert First. I’ve been thinking about that. A lot. (The thinking about eating dessert first has as much to do with how much I’d rather just eat dessert than peas and carrots, but that’s not the point I want to make here.)
Smith says the reason he insists everyone order dessert first when he goes out to dinner is because we should always celebrate first. Celebrate before we’ve done everything we have to do. Celebrate before we’re too tired, too burned out, too “full” (like eating the enormous serving of peas and carrots) that there’s no room left for dessert. He says we should celebrate more, that it’s worth celebrating getting through the mundane, as well as the special and unusual, things of life. Life is short, he says, celebrate along the way instead of waiting for the end. Our human spirit NEEDS the celebrations now, because the end may come much sooner than expected.
I know that if I die choking on a chicken bone, I’ll be glad I ate that chocolate chunk-pretzel-caramel skillet cookie before I started in on the fried chicken with peas and carrots. I might arrive in heaven sweeter than anyone else who got there that day.
Smith makes a good point. How many times have you bought something that made you happy, or that you knew you’d enjoy a lot, and then put it away to save it for a special occasion? I had so many of those kinds of things. I found them years after I bought them in closets and drawers when we were downsizing to move to Florida. What a waste. They were all given away or sold in garage sales, never actually used for celebration.
When Randy and I married, it was de rigueur for young married couples to get a set of “good” china (dishes). If you’re as old as I am, did you “register” for a specific pattern in your wedding registry? We had a small wedding, therefore no wedding registry, but I remember how excited we were to buy (for a fraction of what it cost on the US mainland) a beautiful set of china tableware when we were stationed on Guam. Randy was able to get a 12-place setting on temporary duty in Japan in the late 1970s for a fraction of the cost buying it in the states. We were so proud of those dishes. We even thought it was a “good investment!”
I think we used the good dishes a grand total of 6 times in the 20 years (and 12 military moves) we lugged it around. Finally, after he retired and we moved from Wisconsin to Missouri and had to pay for that move ourselves, we realized it was ridiculous to own 2 sets of dishes.
If I knew then what I know now about celebrating the specialness of every day, I should have gotten rid of the everyday dishes and used the beautiful china every day. Impractical, of course, but it would have been a good reminder to make every day a celebration. When we decided to divest ourselves of the china, no one was interested in buying it. We ended up donating it. So much for the “good investment.”
I know we all buy stuff and put it away for a “special” occasion…. candles, stationery, body lotion, soap, towels, a piece of clothing that makes you feel particularly pretty. If we haven’t found a special occasion to use that stuff up within a year, chances are good you’re never going to use it. It just becomes…. clutter.
Not only that, Wharton Marketing Professor Jonah Berger says “If we buy something and don’t use it, we have not unlocked the value that thing offered to us.” In fact, I think not using those things we buy for special occasions says something to us about ourselves, that we aren’t special enough to warrant the use of them on ourselves.
That’s Smith’s point exactly. We ARE special. Acknowledge and celebrate that all the time. In Chapter 4, Living Each Day As If It Were Your Last, he said he realized that very few people on the planet will ever receive a standing ovation for anything they do in their entire lives. So, he’s made it a mission to applaud everyone he can every day.
What a worthy endeavor!
Start every day looking at yourself in the mirror and celebrate that you woke up that morning. Remind yourself that it’s a good day to have a good day! Remember that this day may be the last one you spend on earth. Celebrate how far you’ve come. Be intentional about how you choose to spend the finite time in the day. And realize that when we are comfortable celebrating ourselves, it becomes easier to form the habit of celebrating others.
So go ahead, order and eat dessert first. Eliminate every excuse you have to put off or forget a celebration. Dig out all that stuff you’re saving for a special occasion and make it your goal to use it all up on yourself and those you love every day.
You are worth it.
The people you love are worth it.
P.S. Putting off things you want to do, places you want to visit until (for example) you’re retired is another form of this phenomenon. Do it now! No one knows how many tomorrows we have left. If it’s about saving money, another good book I read advised to make it your goal to die with a quarter in your pocket. It said you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul. And I do so love that. As I age, the experiences are so much more important than the stuff.
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