Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Once again, I awake with many things on my mind this morning. Front and center are these: Sleep is important. Music is awesome. Time moves faster the older you get. We will all die, no one gets out alive, so how will we live?… The sleep thing has never been so evident in my life as it maybe has been the last couple weeks. Two weeks ago I was averaging maybe 5hrs/night sleep. Just was on a weird schedule, I’d wake up at some crazy early time in the morning with my mind racing and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I usually try to average 6 1/2 hours of sleep per night, so I was way under. This week is the total opposite – over seven hours of sleep/night three times, and almost eight hours last night. It changes everything. Wow, I feel way better than I did the week I wasn’t sleeping. Makes me wonder how much anxiety and despair in peoples lives could be avoided by just getting more sleep. But, of course if you’re worried about something, as soon as you wake up a little your mind can start obsessing and you can’t get back to sleep. So, the anxiety creates the lack of sleep, which adds to the stress and it becomes a vicious cycle. All I know is, I’m moving sleep up my priority list. It’s important. Music: Facebook friends of mine know I wake up pretty much every morning with a song in my head. Today it was “Green Grass” by Gary Lewis and the Playboys. I absolutely love that song. So, on top of waking up feeling great from all that sleep, the song playing in my head has already set me up to wake up happy as well. I found it on YouTube, played it, downloaded their greatest hits album, full of fantastic songs, and listened to the entire thing. Made me smile and dance, and just felt awesome. We all have music like that. “Feel good” music. I add songs to a playlist I have called “feel good music” and whenever I need or want to, I play that playlist. Every song makes me feel good. It’s all about emotion. Music has helped me through every “down” period in my life, too. I love listening to it, playing it, and it’s always fun to share with like minded individuals as well. I like to get the back story on the band, the recording, all that stuff as well. Music is awesome. And time – time moves so fast now. Last two days I swear I got up ten minutes before I had to go to bed. The days just blew by. That’s usually the sign of a good day, time passes so fast because you’re enjoying whatever you’re doing. But it also makes me think about how it will all end as well. At some point, I’ll die. When & how yet to be determined. And, as I look about me and see that today we’re celebrating our granddaughter’s tenth birthday, that many of the players I currently watch in professional sports are in their twenties, and that people I went to school with, listened to their music, watched them play sports when I was young are passing away… I think about time. Twice this week, I thought about a friend of mine (Cliff Osen – some of you might remember him) who was a friend of mine and a big drinking buddy in the eighties. I looked him up on Facebook a few years ago to see if we could reconnect and saw that he passed away in 2007 at the age of 58. The obituary didn’t say what he died from, but I quit drinking in 1988, and if he kept going the level we were at I suspect alcohol could have been a contributing factor. I looked for the obituary today, and it’s been removed. I searched for his name and found nothing. No record of him anywhere anymore. He was an architect, and designed a few buildings that still show his creative impact, but eventually those will change, get torn down, fade away… and the people who knew him, like myself, who still have memories of what he was like, will also pass. Graveyards are full of people who nobody will ever remember, who’s contributions have long ago faded away. So, what does it all mean? What does it matter? How are we to live our lives? We find the things and people that have meaning to us. We do the things we love to do with the people we love doing them with. We create what we can, whenever we can. Music, art, furniture, buildings, whatever we can create, we create. We love freely and live as happily as we can. We help others along the way. We look into every possibility we can and never discount what we’re capable of. Everything will pass. Let’s make our lives a “feel good playlist” – so full of happiness, joy and love, other people can’t help but want to get in on the action.
