I Think I’ve Discovered the Secret of Life.

I think I’ve discovered the secret of life. I know, that sounds like hyperbole but it’s not. Over the last couple years I’ve fallen completely in love with my life, and nothing spectacular happened to make it so. In fact, I’ve become keenly aware of this as two of my kids have grown up and left home. When they call in each week and ask about what I’ve been up to, I realize that it’s just normal, everyday things– things that on paper probably sound a little boring, and yet, every day I feel like I’m floating from one unexpected delight to the next, while I’m just folding laundry, cooking dinner, giving my toddler a bath. My life is so full of tiny, everyday joys that sometimes I look around and feel like I’ve stumbled onto something precious and everyone is missing it.

But it wasn’t always like this. In fact, I lived in a constant state of stress– for years. I wore my stress like a badge of honor. It must mean something about how hard I was working or how much responsibility I had. A long to-do list made me feel important. It gave me value.

But the thing about stress is that it sucks all the joy— all the real, in-your-bones living— right out of life.

And a few years ago I woke up and I realized stress had become a habit for me.

Even when it wasn’t necessary.

Could I justify it if I wanted to? Sure. I had 5 kids, a business, a high maintenance old farmhouse in the middle of renovations, an autoimmune disease to manage, a husband with a demanding job, church responsibilities, yadi, yadi, ya…

But who was I justifying this to? No one was impressed by my stress, I wasn’t winning any medals for “most overwhelmed mom.” No one was even looking. Who was I performing stress to?

These habits come on slowly though. You keep adding just one more thing in, like it’s a calendar competition where the winner has the fullest schedule.

And the tragedy was, I’d made myself too busy for my life. I was rushing through everything. All day long was a race to see how fast I could finish each thing on my to-do list, each task becoming less joyful than the last.

I’d find myself griping my way through an uninspiring dinner, then rushing through the meal to get to—what, exactly? I forgot that the meal was the whole point, the sitting down, eating good, wholesome food. Watching the art I put into the flavors and combinations surprise and delight my family. Seeing them linger over second, sometimes third helpings (teenage boys, am I right?) and coming together in joy.

Anthony Bourdain once said something along the lines of, “If you don’t have time to peel a garlic, you don’t deserve to eat it.”

And whoa is that an indictment…but also, yeah, that’s true. If you’re not willing to slow down and savor life, you’re going to miss all the flavor.

And the older my children get, the more I realize my biggest regret has nothing to do with the things I didn’t get done. It was in rushing so fast through the days I don’t remember what they felt like.

One of my all-time favorite writers, Anna Quindlen, once wrote:

“The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. … I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.”

The secret, according to Anna, is to treasure the doing. Not the getting done.

But how does one go about treasuring the mundane things?