A beautifully simple exercise you can do today.
A habit that will help you experience joy every day, in the every day.
Take three things you did at the weekend. Nothing earth-shattering, just every day japes:
“When you arise in the morning think what a precious privilage it is to be alive; to think, to breathe, to enjoy, to love.”
Marcus Aurelius.
Do you have three?
Now…
Imagine the weekend past was the last time you got to do them.
Ever, in your life…
One day that will happen.
Everything you do will be for the last time.
Everything comes to an end.
Everything.
I doubt it’s possible to live life without regret, not with big brains that allow us to look back and forward.
Being more present, living more fully, will stop you being a puddle on the floor too often.
~~~~~~~~~
You can stop searing regret.
Everything you do will one day be for the last time.
Everything.
Then, there’s nothing.
Eventually there is nothing.
The photo below is the song you put on repeat, the dog-eared book by your bed, your first kiss.
When last l visited the Comwell spa hotel in Snekkersten, l had no idea I wouldn’t be back.
Over a handful years it had become a winter ritual. Flight to Copenhagen, train to Snekkersten, a freezing walk in the dark.
First time, arriving to snow in the wrong shoes late one Sunday in around 2010, l couldn’t find it.
Another year I walked the coast road to Hamlet’s Castle in Elsinore and saw some wrinklies skinny dipping off a jetty.
A dozen ran out of a hut that was their morning sauna.
Every year there was pickled herring, cinnamon pastries, a preternaturally perfect serenity.
Monday early l’d have the run of the place.
A hundred delegates will arrive in an hour and this vista will be buzzing.
Zoom in to see the healthy juices and someone sorting the quick breakfast.
There will be a cool wire cheese slice and warm breads and local jam, a vat of coffee and a dozen mysterious teas on the black wall.
I’ve just sorted my room set-up and will soon go to the restaurant, table for one.
For the last time ever.
