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adam sandler
April 2007 
Sieze the Moment, Seize the Day, or Seize Your Life?
Posted on Apr 12th, 2007
by 
Dharma Driven
Dharma Driven
Many people have heard the saying, "Live every day like it were your last." That totally resonates with me, but what I love even more is what I learned from Adam Sandler's movie "Click".
Pretend that you had a remote control that could slow down, fast forward, skip, or even auto pilot (I've never actually seen that function on a remote control, but whatever) you through your life. We always have multiple things pulling us in different directions at the same time. Each time you move from one activity to a new one, take 5 seconds to ask yourself, "Would I be happy if my remote control programmed itself to make this decision for me automatically every time I was faced with this combination of choices, or even something similar?"
We all fall prey to the notion that we are doing something this time because it has to be done this time, and when we encounter this situation in the future, we'll make the choice that would make us happier, like spending some time outdoors, spending time with loved ones, etc. However, people can be trained just as well as any dog can. If we do something many times when faced with the same situation repeatedly, eventually we develop a pattern of behavior, a habit. The only real difference is that the dogs are trained by us. We actually end up training ourselves without even realizing it.
The next time that you find yourself working late for the third night in a row, watching TV with your kids instead of interacting with them (or worse yet, sitting them in front of the TV while you do other things - I've caught myself doing that one more often than I care to admit), choosing to do something that you feel you need to do over doing something that a loved one needs you to do, or anything along those lines, I want you to ask yourself one thing. What if I made this choice, not even all of the time, more than half of the time? Would I be living the life that I want?
The whole "live each day like it were your last" mentality isn't necessarily all that healthy, because if I only had one day to live, I certainly wouldn't spend it at work. However, since I plan on being here for more than just a day (a large majority of us do), I should probably be able to afford to live, which means I have to go to work. I like the example from Click much better because it gives us a means of evaluating our decisions in a broader, more realistic context.
Pretend that you had a remote control that could slow down, fast forward, skip, or even auto pilot (I've never actually seen that function on a remote control, but whatever) you through your life. We always have multiple things pulling us in different directions at the same time. Each time you move from one activity to a new one, take 5 seconds to ask yourself, "Would I be happy if my remote control programmed itself to make this decision for me automatically every time I was faced with this combination of choices, or even something similar?"
We all fall prey to the notion that we are doing something this time because it has to be done this time, and when we encounter this situation in the future, we'll make the choice that would make us happier, like spending some time outdoors, spending time with loved ones, etc. However, people can be trained just as well as any dog can. If we do something many times when faced with the same situation repeatedly, eventually we develop a pattern of behavior, a habit. The only real difference is that the dogs are trained by us. We actually end up training ourselves without even realizing it.
The next time that you find yourself working late for the third night in a row, watching TV with your kids instead of interacting with them (or worse yet, sitting them in front of the TV while you do other things - I've caught myself doing that one more often than I care to admit), choosing to do something that you feel you need to do over doing something that a loved one needs you to do, or anything along those lines, I want you to ask yourself one thing. What if I made this choice, not even all of the time, more than half of the time? Would I be living the life that I want?
The whole "live each day like it were your last" mentality isn't necessarily all that healthy, because if I only had one day to live, I certainly wouldn't spend it at work. However, since I plan on being here for more than just a day (a large majority of us do), I should probably be able to afford to live, which means I have to go to work. I like the example from Click much better because it gives us a means of evaluating our decisions in a broader, more realistic context.
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