As I sat under the artificial sun, my phone buzzed on the desk. I almost ignored it to continue prattling along on the keyboard. I didn’t dare pop the bubble of concentration.
Because once you lose it, you spend the next hour pretending to work while actually just rearranging sentences and questioning your life choices.
Then I saw my husband’s name pop up with a play button. It was a video of my daughter enjoying her new bounce house, complete with an inflated slide, basketball hoop, and water spraying in all directions.
Chaos. Joy. Zero calendar invites.
I lived in the north for almost three decades. Experiencing snow as a kid was pure bliss. Snow days were a rare and delicious treat. As an adult, needing to make it to the office in a full-on white-out was…dread.
Somewhere along the way, wonder got rescheduled.
That day, my daughter was fully in the moment.
Time didn’t exist. The only metric was: keep going.
No outcome. No agenda. Just…more.
I was on a schedule.
Every hour accounted for, every task justified.
Every minute explained, as if existing required permission.
Kids experience life to the fullest.
Adults? We manage things.
We get better at life and worse at living it.
Fluorescent paradise for eight hours: controlled productivity.
The kind that looks impressive on paper and feels like nothing in your body.Bounce house for six hours: complete freedom.
The kind you can’t measure, which is probably why we stop choosing it.
And there it was, the tension no one warns you about: the life you’re building versus the life happening without you.
One looks responsible. The other feels real.
I chose the latter. And did just the same as my daughter: spent the remainder of daylight outside, watching her exemplify joy.
No optimization. No productivity hack. Just showing up.
When given the choice, I hope we all choose the second option.
Even when it feels inconvenient. Even when it makes no sense on paper.
We learned to manage it. We forgot to be in it.
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