I am an optimist. I will admit it right now. The glass is half full. I can make lemonade out of lemons. I look for the best in people. I lean toward the upbeat. I have been outright accused of being a Pollyanna (a movie, which by the way, scarred me for life when I saw it as a child). I didn’t think the #100daysofhappy challenge would be very hard for me. My fabulous friend Catherine Hummel had asked a group of us to try the challenge together and I thought, “No problem.”
And it really wasn’t. (Full disclosure, I skipped Day 16 because I had a stomach bug. It’s SUPER hard to be happy when you have a stomach bug.)
And then a friend posted beneath my jar of juice about how she should focus on #unhappy because of all the undone laundry and dishes at her house. Well, I just grabbed my phone and snapped a few pics to document my home as it stood right then: #Messy.
I wish my home was more organized sometimes. I wish my life looked more together. (But honestly, then I’d just worry about you thinking my life was too perfect and I’d be forced to wake up fresh out of bed and snap a photo of myself like Glennon Melton did.)
So how about we all encourage each other? Let’s all love our lives AND our messes. Let’s help each other out, and set aside the judgment and comparison.
Because here’s the truth: NO ONE IS PERFECT. Everyone is a work in progress. And even if we all “make it,” we’re also all going to eventually end our time here. We may as well love ourselves and our lives; warts (and dishes and laundry and messy houses/emotions) and all.
I’m at a conference in Florida this week and the speaker this morning, Kelley Moore of See Your Possibilities, said that given the chance, everyone will ask the EXACT same three questions at the end of their life:
- Did I live?
- Did I love?
- Did I matter?
I’m guessing that no one gets to the end of life asks asks, “Did I do enough housekeeping?” Don’t let messy keep you from happy. Go! Live! Drink lemonade! If you wait for perfect, you could be waiting a long time.
