HOW CAN WE LIVE UNRREASONABLY

Living unreasonably goes beyond asking people to supply you with an unreasonable request. It is first thinking outside of the box, for without that, you cannot hope to live your life with a larger vision than that already drawn for you by parents, circumstances, and past decisions. It is more than having a bucket list of things you want to accomplish before you die. It is having the capacity to soar on the winds rather than being buffeted by the storms of life.

When an eagle approaches a thunderstorm, it will lock its wings and ride the thermals, letting them take it up, up, up above the storm, even 10,000 feet up. It may get ice on its wings, but once it locks its wings, it cannot unlock them until it is on the other side of the storm. What would happen if, when we are in the midst of a serious storm in life, we lock our wings and ride it out rather than let it batter us into the ground? Storms always come. How do we handle them?

It doesn’t mean we quit a job without another one in place, but if a job is death to our spirits, perhaps it is looking creatively for another way. It doesn’t mean we no longer do the laundry, dishes, cleaning, changing dirty diapers. But maybe it means we give it a break for a morning or a day and do something amazing like taking the kids to the river, the lake, the ocean, the mountains, whatever you live near that is out of the ordinary for you. Maybe it’s taking yourself there and having the time to listen to your spirit, and to that small inner voice inside each of us that is always speaking to us, but for which we are too busy and too noisy to listen. In the midst of a hectic, crazy, frustrating day at work, perhaps it’s saying a quick prayer to give you the attitude you need to thrive rather than merely survive the day.

When life is going well, it is learning to live above the ordinary. Perhaps to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. To see life as an amazing gift, and one in which you have the capacity to change the lives of those around you. In small ways, in large ways, but to change your world for the better. We all have this ability, but when we live unreasonably, we include the people we encounter in ways that will gift them. When we get outside of ourselves, our circumstances, we get a different perspective. It’s like being on the top of a mountain for the first time, and thinking that you could get used to the visual majesty all around, the wind in your face, the wind that makes you think you could fly, the fresh, fresh air. But it’s when we bring that mountaintop experience down into the everyday that our lives truly become extraordinary, and we begin to live unreasonably.