“Dad, this is the best day of my life.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I have two paper airplanes.”

It seems that I have a thing or two to learn from my soon-to-be 5 year-old, especially lately. I love paper airplanes as much as the next geek, but his simple statement resonated with me on a slightly deeper level – and hopefully woke me up a little. Let me explain.

[Warning: I'm about to get a little waxy and slightly philosophical here. You might want to change the channel for a few minutes if this sort of thing makes you squeamish or, well, bored out of your mind.]

Like most people these days, I have a lot going on. You probably do too. To me, the name of the game in an economy like this is one word: Hustle. I don’t mean card tricks, shell games, or a ’70s dance craze; I mean if you want to find some sense of financial stability, you’ve got to keep moving forward no matter what. If you stand still for too long, the world will pass you by. I’m currently very fortunate to have a great contract for which I’m very grateful, but it means I often work long hours in front of multiple computer screens. Along with that, I have several side projects on the Web, not including this one; I write for a community blog here in Portland; I am an amateur musician trying to take music seriously; I do design work on the side occasionally; provide ongoing Web support services to a non-profit arts org.; I have a book in the works (who doesn’t?); and the list goes on.

But clearly, there is nothing of greater importance than the care and energy that I direct toward my home relationships. Specifically, my amazing wife and my beautiful children. And I imagine that I should include myself in that mix. In a sense, it is a task at times to maintain a “relationship” with myself, keeping (or seeking) a vision of who I am now, and who I want to be. Of course, that concept of having a “relationship” with myself is a little flawed I think; it’s better to actually be me than to have conversations with myself over who I want to be. (I’m not crazy. Are you crazy? Nope, me neither.)

Perhaps I’ve said too much.

At any rate, my son’s insightful words reminded me that I’ve got to focus more on being happy with what I accomplish each day, and less on the things I haven’t finished, or the things that I’ve let slip, or the things I wish I would have started already. As many readers of Almost Fit have commented, sometimes I spend a little too much time being hard on myself about what I haven’t done, or how things have regressed from time to time, and I think that’s a fair assessment. How much better it is to look at each day as it’s own set of challenges and rewards, putting less emphasis on the history of successes and failures, and more on this question:

What am I doing TODAY?

Rather than falling into a self-defeating cycle of obsessing over what I haven’t been doing food and exercise-wise, I think the right answer is found in a familiar old song from the ’30s – I think a lot of us say these words internally, but today, I’m saying them to you.

“Nothing is impossible, for I have found, when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.”- from the 1936 classic film, Swing Time, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

It’s cliché without question, but ya know what? There’s truth in it, and it’s what I’m doing today. Here’s the clip:

What am I doing today? I’m finishing this post, making time to play with my kids, work out, and then going on a quiet date night with the love of my life. Sounds like a pretty good day to me.

What are you doing today?

[UPDATE: Just a quick P.S.: Apologies for the misspelling of "Astaire". I corrected it shortly after the post went out in email...Ah dang. ]

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