5 Ways to Make Each Day Worthwhile by Diana Nyad
Diana Nyad, Host of The Score.
Kwase Mfume, when he was still head of the NAACP, told me a story that moved me greatly. His grandmother raised him. It was just the two of them and they were extremely tight. When he was only ten, his grandmother died quickly from an aggressive cancer. On one of her last days, Kwase was sitting on the edge of her hospital bed. He cried and told her he couldn’t live without her. She said, “Of course you’re going to live. You’re just a little boy. And you’re going to have a wonderful life. But if you want to remember me, I could ask you to do something for me.”
Through his tears, Kwase said: “Anything, grandma, I’ll do anything you say.”
“OK”, she said, “this is what I want you to promise to do every morning for the rest of your life. You know that moment when you’re not fully awake yet but you’re not still asleep either?”
“Yes”, he said, “I know that feeling when you’re sort of half-awake.”
“Well, just before you really wake up, I want you to keep your eyes closed and say to yourself, ‘Make This Day Worthwhile’, and you and you alone will be the judge at the end of each day as to whether you in fact made that day worthwhile or not.”
When I met Mr. Mfume, he was in his 50’s and told me that he had kept his promise to his grandmother all those years and that his definition of what makes a day worthwhile changed through the years but every single day he took that magical moment of half-slumber, half-alertness to remind himself to make the most of the coming day.
I of course can’t dictate what will make your day worthwhile, but these are 5 things that rock my world at this stage of my life. I try to accomplish them daily.
1. Feel the Awe of Nature.
Trees. Flowers. Waves. Mountains. Clouds. Cool breezes. Let the beauty of this jewel of a planet take your breath away at least once each day.
2. Be kind to a stranger.
Smile at someone as you pass in the grocery aisle, ask the newspaper salesman how he’s doing, strike up a conversation in the coffee line, let a car enter your lane in front of you, pay for the car behind you at a toll booth.
3. Enjoy Your Body.
Skip down the sidewalk. Dance in your car seat. Soak in a hot tub.
Cuddle in the luxury of 700-thread-count sheets.
4. Find Your Empathic Self.
Get out of your head and into someone else’s. Feel for a friend, a significant other, a colleague. Help solve their problems. Celebrate their good fortune.
5. Laugh Out Loud.
At least for me, this is harder than it would seem. Smiling, now that’s easy. But to find occasions, to create moments that provoke audible laughter, now I find that hard to come by. Engage with people you know are good for a laugh. Log in to clever bloggers, tune in to amusing radio or television personalities, read humorists who spark you. Or just tilt your head back and go from a chuckle to a belly-laugh at the joy, the absurdity, the poignancy of this life we’re all living.
Tags: advise, self-improvement
I love this list. Thank you very much Diana.