This Is Water

 “I wish someone would have told me that adulthood was living the same day on repeat,” I found myself confessing to a colleague one day in the teacher’s lounge.

“You needed someone to tell you that Hill?”  He stated at me with surprise.

I nodded in disappointment.

The thing is: I used to lay in bed at night as a kid and dream about my future.

When I delivered the commencement address at St. Cloud State at the end of my undergraduate career, I thought of all the good in the world I and my peers were about to pursue. 

Now I find myself dreaming less.  I have bills to pay and more responsibilities.

No one told me that many days were going to involve getting up, pulling on the nearest clean clothes, packing a lunch with food I am not excited to eat and heading to work.

Yes!  There are moments in my day that are stimulating, opportunities to connect with kids about the wonder of books and technology that are absolutely breathtaking…

And other moments of my life that involve:

Vacuuming

Paying Taxes

Taking the garbage out

Cleaning the bathroom

Getting Groceries

Getting Groceries again

And everyone’s favorite: being stuck on hold.

These moments are so cyclical and common and in life, yet no one has really taught us how to live in these moments, to truly appreciate them…to stop, and wonder.

In the absence of a good teacher, we have learned well how to retreat into our cell phones:  texting, and scrolling through social media.  We know how to turn to our additions.  We know how too the practice of mentally “checking-out,” whenever we’re bored, but when’s the last time we took the opportunity in our normal, routine day to pay attention?

A friend recently sent me a video clip called This is Water, a commencement address by David Foster in 2006 to the students at Kenyon College.  It challenged the way I live my life in my routine moments.  I hope it challenges you as well.

Video Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzFNh2_dSBg

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