Life is About LIVING

Lately, I’ve noticed more and more people using the term "making memories" as a goal for themselves and their families. Perhaps it began growing in popularity once the world opened up post the throes of the COVID-19 crisis, when people began to realize just how important personal connections—in particular, physical connections—with loved ones are in terms of enriching their lives.

That said, I find the goal of "making memories" to be a curious one because, at least to me, "memories" are not the goal of a particular activity—they are the result of it. The truth is they’re made regardless of whether we want to remember a specific experience or not. Moreover, they can be both good and not-so-good. It's not like we retain only the good ones and dispense with the bad ones. In fact, it's more likely that we hang onto the bad ones at the expense of focusing on the good!

One lesson that has come to me with age is that life is not about “making memories.” Life is about LIVING. It is joyful and messy and challenging and wonderful and heart-warming and heart-breaking and full of victories and tragedies—both large and small—all of which create the pieces parts that “memories” are made of.

So as we anticipate the beginning of a new year, perhaps we should focus on embracing life as it comes—on living in the moment and truly experiencing the good and the bad, be they milestone events or the mundanity of the everyday—without recording it (literally or figuratively) for posterity's sake.

As the inimitable philosopher Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” And the fact is no matter how long we live, life’s too short. It would be a shame to look at it as one giant To Do list.