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Few years ago, I had a nice long walk on one of Dubai's beautiful beaches. After about an hour, I got a bit thirsty so I decided to go back to my car and look for something to drink. I couldn't find anything. Luckily my home isn't too far from the beach, about 25 minutes drive, so I decided to drive back home and get some rest.
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When I reached home, I went straight to the fridge to grab some nice cold water. I opened the fridge and I saw three bottles: One bottle of cold orange juice, one bottle of lemonade, and one bottle of pomegranate juice. There was an empty glass next to them.
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I thought for a second what should I drink first. I knew if I drank the orange juice, I will probably have no appetite for either the lemonade or the pomegranate juice. And if I drank any of the other juices, I won't need to drink the other ones any more...It didn't take too long before I decided to pick up the lemonade juice and pour it in the glass till it was totally full. I drank it and my thirst got quenched nicely. I closed the fridge and didn't think even twice about refilling my glass with any other liquid.
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In our lives, we do have many things going on...Our daily busy schedules, our work and personal responsibilities and obligations, our relationships and goals and projects we're working on. So many things happening in our lives but if we look a bit closer, we'll find that one of the reasons of stress in our lives is that we're trying to focus on everything at the same time under the notion of being more productive and efficient. We try to do well on a certain project at work, but we feel bad about not giving enough attention to other projects. We try to spend time with our kids but that takes from the time we spend with our friends. We try to focus on our relationship with our spouses but that makes us feel we're ignoring our hobbies. So, no matter how hard we try to satisfy all our needs and obligations and responsibilities, we are always thinking of what's missing and where we're not performing well. And this not only adds up to our stress, but it takes away from enjoying what we're currently doing.
No matter how much I enjoyed drinking that glass of lemonade juice, I was leaving out both the orange juice and the pomegranate juice. No matter how hard we work on one thing, we'll always be leaving out something else.
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So, what's the solution for this dilemma? How can we resolve this problem? Guess what: There is no problem in the first place to be resolved. I say, we are human beings and our nature is to do and enjoy and focus on one thing at a time. So, why would I feel bad about missing a million other happy moments when I'm already living a happy moment? As long as you don't ignore any important relationship or responsibility in your life, it's OK not to handle everything at the same time. It's OK to just be human and do one thing at a time and do it right and fully enjoy it. Self-blame on things which deserves no blame causes nothing but stress and negative emotions which will not only negatively affect the quality of our lives, but will also make it hard to enjoy anything we do or any happy moment we live.
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So, enjoy having your cold drink when you feel you need it, and enjoy having your hot cup of tea or coffee when the time is right for them.