Carpe Diem – Why enjoying is more important than getting everything right

This Sunday must’ve been my favourite day in quite some time now. Sure – getting up at 4am might not sound like the greatest start of a day, but while walking in the freezing morning air, I kept telling myself “This will be worth it!” And surely it was. I took a trip to the Cliffs of Moher, located at the southwestern edge of the Burren region in County Clare, Ireland, and an absolute must-see while on this beautiful island.

While walking the incredible coastal path all the way to the edge of the last cliff, I couldn’t help but be solely overwhelmed by this magical place. The further I walked up, the further I felt from my worries and anything that had been weighing me down. With miles of deep-blue ocean ahead of me, I did nothing but become aware of where I was at this very moment in my life. I was not at work, I was not in school, not at home, and not in any place that could be occupying my consciousness. I was solely here, standing at the top of the cliff, with no one but myself. Doing nothing, but enjoying. And that is why enjoying is more important than getting every duty in your life right.

We all do it – worry. Worry about our performances at work or school, our relationships, our appearance, our future. What if we don’t succeed in this exam? What if our partner finds someone else more attractive than us? Are people judging our body? What if we don’t get to live the life we always dreamed of? Worries over worries, questions without answers.  These things often prevent us from being utterly happy and satisfied with our lives. But if there is one thing I learnt, life does not come the way you expect or intend it to. It has a unusual way of working out when you’ve lost all hope, as it has a strange way of taking a path in the complete opposite direction than you were aiming at. But whatever two of these cases might occur, it often does not lay in our hands. Surely, we own a lot of power to steer our life in a certain direction, yet life still turns our boat in fine and subtle ways that can turn out to be major changes in our way of living. Thus, getting everything right in life is certainly impossible. Not realising this concept is a mistake that many of us make, and we continue to live in the ever lasting fear of failing who or what we are supposed to be. But what I have learnt is to even incorporate failure, rejection, negative judgement and loss in who I am as a person. Worrying about these things will not do anything but hold us back from having a good time. Accept them with grace, and enjoy even when the wind takes you north instead of south.

“Just enjoy!” – a very important person in my life has told me this for many years now. Why I never took it seriously? Because I didn’t understand how I could enjoy my life when I had so many things to worry about. But this day, when I stood on the Cliffs of Moher, showed me that enjoying the very moment you are living is more important than anything else right then, as it will only come around once. In the end, no matter if north or south, life has a funny way of working out when you thought it never will.

Joana