That Kid Educated Me

A DIFFERENT WAY TO EMBRACE LIFE, AS TAUGHT ME BY THE SNEAKY KID AT THE BBQ

I was at a restaurant here called Dickey's BBQ. One of their customer enticements is free ice-cream with your meal; they provide the cones, and you help yourself at the soft-serve machine. It's located alongside the beverage fountain.

The kid to who I refer, paid full price for a large cup – the take-along cups at Dickey's are plastic, not paper, and meant to be reusable, in a kind of "permanent" way that makes one a little uneasy about tossing them in the trashcan if one is at all environment-conscious.

The unspoken routine is that you come back when you're finished, and make yourself a quick ice-cream cone on the house, on your way out. Thanks, and have a great day, compliments of your friends at Dickey's BBQ!

The kid marched past the soda fountain, and put his cup under the soft-serve dispenser. He'd paid for it. There was no spoken rule or signage to the affect of "use cups for beverages, cones for ice-cream." He filled it up. An epic serving of ice-cream. There may be a sign like that now, however, but I was taught something important by watching this kid use the rules to his advantage without technically breaking them…

It's not about watching what you eat, or being irresponsible with one's life choices. It's about interpreting life.

My I offer to you, that the old clichéd adages, "Live life to its fullest," "Live each day like it's your last," and "Seize the day," et al… are a big crock o' horsecrap. Seriously.

How exactly can you be sure what your personal "fullest" day would be like? Are you sure yesterday was "full" enough to qualify? There's no mean measurement to refer against, when judging a given day's "full" mark.

When you pretend today is your "last," and proceed to live it accordingly, it's kind of self-aggrandizing. You do that knowing in the back of your mind, that it's likely not your last – unless you habitually run across open freeways, flagpole sit or poke grizzly bears for fun. So you're really living today like it's your last day of messing around, not necessarily your last day of being alive.

Seize the day? You do that all the time, or at least attempt it – getting chores done, paying bills, tending to your family, resting, vacationing, working, figuring out random day-to-day stuff. "Seize the day" is a pretty damn vague task, subject to a million different interpretations, and just as many grey areas of criteria. It's a faux-erudite spin of "get off your ass," actually. A cowboy would say, "make hay while the sun shines." Confucious might say something like, "wait not on the morrow," in Chinese, of course. Yoda would be all "all hesitation, end you must."

Sometimes you have no other choice but to seize the day. "What do you mean the offer expires at midnight?" Enlightenment cannot be forced on you – if it is, it's usually a penalty, not an epiphany. You got it wrong! What have we learned today?

So what do I offer in place of those wise old nuggets of self-helptardism?

How about this… think back to that kid and his cup. At some point he put the concepts together: I paid for this big cup. There's an ice-cream machine next to the soda fountain. Why did I assume the cones were exclusive, because they're free like the ice-cream?

Don't live like today is your last. Live like YESTERDAY was your last… and you somehow landed a bonus one. Don't worry how "full" it is, just regard every day you wake up as another one you're "getting away with."

Occasionally I ponder all the things I've been through, the turns life has taken, the obstacles, failures and triumphs I've had… and I ponder sometimes, "maybe I was supposed to be gone by now." Today is a gift. It's that jackpot you won by following that whim to pull the handle when the machine's regular player who "owned" it, took a bathroom break.

Wake up, thinking, "I'm getting ONE MORE." Don't worry if it isn't outwardly miraculous, or perfect to the last minute. There's one more cookie in the jar, after you thought it empty. There's an ice-cream machine… and you've paid for that big cup anyway – why was I settling for soda before?

Begin tomorrow with an accurate assessment of it: "I wasn't promised this, but here it is."