One of today’s most popular catch phrases is “live in the moment” or “live for today.” A quick search on iTunes finds more than 50 songs with “live for today” in the title.
My guess is this phrase is meant to tell us: Do as much as you can right now! Live today as if tomorrow doesn’t exist! Live without regrets!
I get the message. In fact, I often try hard to seize the day, especially when it comes to being with my kids. But lately I’ve found that living for each moment can cause more regrets than it erases.
Being a working mom is probably the hardest challenge I have ever encountered. I’m constantly trying to balance my work life with my family life, and unfortunately I fail more than I succeed. One way I try to create that balance is by striving to live in each moment. If I’m at work, I try to give my entire focus to my work (not easy since I work at home). When I’m with my family, I try hard to give them all my attention. That, too, is easier said than done thanks to the creation of smart phones. I am now reachable by phone, text or e-mail, all on one evil little device. More often than not, family outings are interrupted with a quick e-mail or call.
Truthfully, I’m OK with the challenges that come with working from home. It also offers me great flexibility to be with my kids at key moments such as field trips, appointments or sports events.
But all that changes once school is out for the summer. The kids are now in my “workplace” every day, all day, and it’s this close proximity that makes living in each moment difficult. Boundaries blur because we’re always together, and there’s a sense of urgency that comes with the end of each school year.
Summer also alerts the mom within me that there are only six more summers before our daughter heads off to college, and our son is also growing up really fast. This creates an impending sadness that urges me to make the most of every moment, hence the difficulty for a working mom.
I rarely say no to a bike ride or trip to the park. I make a list of “must-do’s” that I insist we complete each summer. If it’s sunny, we’re outside by the pool so as not to waste one sunny day. We’re constantly on the move to do as much as we can and live for each day. As a result, I am completely exhausted.
An enlightening thought hit me the other day as I put down the book I was trying read so I could fulfill my son’s request to play football in the pool. Is it possible that by living for each and every moment and trying to pour everything we have into today, that we create regrets instead of preventing them?
I find myself increasingly stressed out trying to achieve everything on the to-do list for a particular day, both from a family and work perspective. It’s to the point that the joy in working and being with my kids is overshadowed by a sense to get everything done. Being good at what I do and being the best mom I can be now feels more like a chore than the privilege it should be.
Perhaps if there was less emphasis on living every moment as if it were the last, then the joy that comes with what we choose to do wouldn’t be extinguished by a pressure to get it all done today.
Journalism was my major in college, not psychology. I only really know what I have personally experienced. But if my poolside revelation can help other working moms realize it’s OK sometimes to not follow the greeting cards, self-help books and popular songs and do things at our own speed, then maybe the moments I spent writing this column weren’t wasted.
STACEY HARRIS lives in LaPorte with her husband and two children. She is an account manager for a national advertising agency.
