Seize the Day

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Hello everybody, welcome, welcome, welcome. If this is uh your first time tuning in, thank you so much for joining. If you've been here before, thank you so much for coming back. Uh so happy to have you listening in. Um, if this is your first time listening to the podcast, we kind of talk about a lot of everything on here with the hopes of of talking about you know how to you know be the best versions of ourselves and how to live the best versions of our life and and how to work on mental health and all the stuff and things related to that. So um so happy you're tuning in. Um whether you're here for the first time or whether whether you're back to listen to some more. Tonight I wanted to chat um about seizing opportunity when we have opportunity. Um, and I got to thinking about this um because we actually went on a little trip um last weekend for like a long weekend. Um went up uh kind of uh went up to uh Lake Placid um in New York and wanted to do some like wintery stuff up there, um which we did get to do a lot of things. It was a great trip. Um but once when we got up there, we found out about uh this this toboggan chute uh that we didn't know about. It's like a local thing, and we found out about it. So we wanted to do that. Um we also found out about um some like ice skating opportunities that we wanted to try out. Uh so once we got up there, we're like, okay, yeah, let's put this on the agenda. Um, but we didn't do it the first the first couple days we were there. The plan was to you know go back and and do it um towards the end of the trip. So anyway, long story short, um the every those things ended up closing down because the weather actually warmed up and you know they their winter activities obviously, and once the ice started to get slushy, they the people that ran the stuff decided that it needed to be closed down, which is completely fine and understandable. But the reason that it kind of triggered this thought in my brain is because I said to the people we were traveling with, like, yeah, I was like, this just goes to show you you should do things when you have the opportunity to do them. Um, because I had thought, I had thought the first day we figured out these things were available, I was like, oh, we should just jump on it and we should do it tonight. Um, because we knew it was gonna be potentially warming up, and we, you know, didn't really know what that would mean for the the activities. And there was a part of me that's like we should just go ahead and we should jump all this and we should do it. But we didn't. We said, oh no, like it's fine, we'll do it in a few days. And then we missed the opportunity to do those things. And of course, I'm just is this is just an example of something that triggered the thought process in my in my mind regarding this. Obviously, missing out on doing the toboggan shoot is not the end of the world, you know, obviously, like, but it's a little it's a little example that in my head I extrapolate out to far more important things and far bigger things in life. And the the theory and the thought still applies. When you have the opportunity to do something, you should seize that opportunity. And when you have the chance to experience something, you should seize the opportunity to experience it. Because you never know when that opportunity will no longer be available, and you never know when is going to be your last chance at doing something or trying something or seeing something or seeing someone. So we tend to, I think a lot of times we tend to to very much in our heads and and out loud say, okay, we'll do that someday, we'll do that one day, you know, we'll do that tomorrow, we'll get to that one day. And I'm here to just kind of challenge us to obviously you can't do everything, you can't do everything in a lifetime in in one day or even one week or even one year. So obviously, some things have to be postponed. Obviously, we have to we have to plan and we have to wait to experience certain things or another. So obviously, common sense applies here, but I think we have a tendency because uh like we've talked about on this on this podcast before, it's it's very easy to get comfortable in life, it's very easy to get kind of settled in our routines. Like we know our brain and our mind really likes to be in the comfort zone, it likes to do the things that it feels is familiar because there's comfort and safety in familiar when you're when you're thinking about the you know the animal brain and how how the brain works. Um, there's a lot of comfort in sticking to things and to routines that feel familiar to us because the brain equates that with the safety factor. So I think we have the tendency sometimes because we don't want to push our our comfort zone, you know, our comfort zones. We don't want to do something that feels intimidating or or potentially scary to us. Um potentially we don't want to take the risk on something, whether it be financially or whether it be you know another kind of risk. Um we just get kind of settled in our ways, and sometimes I think we make excuses in our head about why we can't do something or why we should wait to do something or why we shouldn't pursue that thing right now, and we just kick the can down the road saying, I'll get to it one day. And I'm just here to challenge us all about that, about living in that head space, because unfortunately, we don't know, none of us know when our hourglass runs out, right? Like nobody knows when our our time here is over. Like nobody knows the answer to that, but it is a certain fact and a certain reality that with each passing day we lose a little bit of sand from our hourglass. So with each passing day, you know, we have less time. We still don't know how much time we have, but we know we have less time. And that's not to that's not to make us that shouldn't make us depressed or sad. What it should do is it should make us want to seize every opportunity and seize every moment that we can to experience everything that we that we can. For all of us, for for every situation, for every single one of us, there is going to be a last time. There is going to be a last chance. You know, there's going to be a last opportunity. There everything we do in life, every person we interact with in life, every experience we live in life, there will be a last time of those things. Like there will be the last time you get the opportunity to do XYZ. There will be the last time you get to see person XYZ. There will be a last time you get to, you know, experience XYZ, you know, and insert whatever into those algorithms you want, but the certainty is that there will be a last time for everything in life and a last opportunity for everything in life. I I think about this a lot with my horses. Um, if you've tuned in here before, you know I have horses. Um, if you haven't, I have horses that I that I compete on around the country. Um, and I had one get very sick and actually had to have surgery last year. And you know, I think about that. I think about that every time I ride my horse and and send them down the alleyway. Um, we say that in barrel racing all the time. You know, you only have so many runs on a horse. Um, and again, it's like you don't know when the hourglass is gonna run out, like you don't know when the last time will be, but it is a certain absolute reality that there will be a last time, like there is going to be a barrel run or a run that we make on the barrel pattern that will be the last time we do it. And because we don't know when that is gonna happen, like we don't know when the last time was going is going to be, you know, again, it shouldn't make you sad, it shouldn't be, it shouldn't put you into a tailspin of depression. Instead, you know, again, I challenge all of us to to go the other way with it, to lean into that, you know, to lean into being aware of that, and then because we are aware of that, just soaking it up for every ounce that it's worth. And, you know, I that's I try to do that with my horses. Like every time I make a run on them, I try to just really be so present in that moment and and just experience it and appreciate it and be grateful for it and you know, just live it completely because I know there's always a chance that that could be the last, the last time, the last opportunity, you know, to send them down the alleyway. And I was almost in that predicament, or I was almost in that spot uh last year when my one horse had to have her her surgery. You know, I I didn't know that she would ever be okay again. I didn't know if she would ever race again, I didn't know if I would ever ride her again. And fortunately, even though I had to, even though it was obviously still a tough experience, and obviously I was heartbroken, and obviously I was grieving and upset, the one thing I didn't have to deal with was feeling regret that I didn't soak up the experience more or soak up the experience in a better way. Because fortunately, you know, I do try to look at life through this lens, and you know, every run I had made on her, you know, the before that surgery happened, I felt like I I lived it and appreciated it and loved it and experienced it for all I could. And so I didn't have that regret. You know, on top of all the other stuff going on, I didn't have that regret of man, I should have, you know, I should have done this, or I should have done that, or I wasted that opportunity, or I didn't take advantage of that experience, or I didn't appreciate it when I had it, and I didn't take it for granted. I didn't have any of those thoughts. And that's kind of my challenge for all of you out there because that's what I want for for anyone out there who's listening, that's what I want for for you is to live your life in a way that you that you don't have regrets, you know, that you don't look back and think, you know, should have, would have, could have. I mean, yes, we're gonna look back on our life and we're gonna think, oh, I didn't make the right decision there, but or oh, I should have, you know, maybe taken a different path there because now I have different information and now I know better. And you know, like you can reflect back on your life and learn lessons, you know, from from the things you did or didn't do. And obviously, that's not that's okay, and that's healthy, and and that I think is different than than what I'm talking about, which is looking back on your life and having regrets because you wanted to do something, or you had the opportunity to do something that you kind of wanted to do, and you didn't take advantage of it, you didn't seize it, or you, if you did, you didn't experience it to the fullest of your capability. And now you look back on that thing and and you have you you feel like you should have done something different. As I've mentioned on here before, uh, you know, I work, I work in health care. Uh, I have for many years, I work in mostly trauma and and critical care. So, and and but and I have seen a lot of tragedy working in those fields. And I've seen a lot of people who have their lives turned upside down um overnight, you know, and families who have their entire worlds up, you know, turned upside down overnight. Um, and uh a lot of sadness, I mean, obviously. Um, and it was hard for me in the beginning to cope with all that. Um, I wasn't really sure how to cope with it. It contributed to a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. Um, and I struggled with it for a while. But what I what I figured out is kind of exactly hopefully the message I'm I'm accurately trying to relay and articulate to you now. Turn into it, lean into it, and say, you know what, yeah, like I have a healthy awareness of how fragile life is and how quickly things can change. So instead of being walking around with a constant sadness about that, instead I'm going to go the other way. And I'm gonna say, you know what? I know what, I know what can change, I know how it can change, I know how fragile it is, and because of that, I'm going to live every moment and seize every opportunity and go after every experience because I have the opportunity to do so, and so many other people don't. And you know, that's how I try to live my life, and a lot of that has been shaped by seeing you know so much tragedy up close and personal, and and just having this really, really hardcore awareness of how quickly everything, you know, around us can can be different. And this really profound awareness of of how you know every everything is limited. Like there's a last chance for everything, there's a last opportunity for everything. The hourglass runs out for all of us, like for you know, for every experience, for every opportunity, there is an end game. So take advantage of everything you can you can take advantage of. If you every experience, every opportunity, every chance to do something that you want to do, you know, to be who you want to be, like seize those opportunities. Don't push, don't push them off until tomorrow. Um, because you know it the chance just may not be there tomorrow. And I don't want you to miss out on anything. So that is kind of that is my talk today. Whether whether it is a lighthearted want to go tobogging, like on a toboggan shoot in Lake Placid, or whether it is something really profound and big in life, you know, the message is still the same. Just when you have the opportunities, take them because you may not get them again. And life is meant to be lived. So, you know, chase the dream, take the risk, make the trip, take the chance. I hope that makes uh I hope that speaks to someone out there and um seize the day today and tomorrow and the rest of the week, and then tune back in next week to talk some more. And if you think anyone out there that you know might like this podcast, please share it. I'd really appreciate that. Um that would mean the world. All right, thanks guys. I hope uh hope you have a great rest of the night and talk again soon. Bye.