Essays

September 1, 2011

There is a bumper sticker tacked onto my bedroom wall that reads, “Work like you don’t need money. Dance like no one’s watching you. Love like you’ve never been hurt.” I think I would be much better off if I actually lived up to this motto. What does it truly mean? In this essay or writing, I will break it down into pieces in order of the way it is written and interpret it according to the way it makes sense to me. Maybe I can even share it with my group today at behavioral health later on today.

The first part is to work like you don’t need the money. I could take that literally and say it means to not work so hard at all, but that is not what I think it really means.

I think working like you don’t need the money means doing what you really love no matter what you get paid for doing that thing. I think it means following your dreams regardless of the investment you are making and the money you make doing that occupation.

Next is to dance like no one’s watching. This is my favorite line in the quotation, but it is also the hardest for me. I believe it has to do with not being inhibited or self conscious. I think it means to have fun in life plus doing the things you need to do even if someone else might think it is silly or laugh at you.

The last part of the bumpersticker quotation is to love like you’ve never been hurt. This is very pertinent as I am now living apart from my husband of not much more than a year. This could mean romantic love or it could mean agape, love for people in general. It could just mean to spread love to your fellow human beings everywhere you go.

I love this bumper sticker. My husband bought it for me when we were having better times and trying to work things out. I was feeling the true sentiment of the quotation then and felt like having something to keep me going when I sit in my room and look around.

[From the time I wrote this into a journal book that says “Seize the Day” on the cover]

Right now I am sitting in my room on the bed we used to share and just thinking about my marriage in respect to the message of this quotation. I am wishing Chris would live by this, and I wish I had last Christmas.

I am having a lot of regret recently over arguing we did, especially during Christmas and also during the time David was recovering from his big surgery. We could never just enjoy the good moments of life. We always had to make things so hard. I believe it is unfortunate that we had to struggle over such pettiness to the detriment of our marriage and the forfeit of our beautiful child to the coldness of the Monterey court system. It is sad and unfortunate. I hope we can learn from what has happened and be better people.

Maybe a side note to this phrase could be to live as if one has no regrets. Instead of wishing that you had not done something, maybe you could try living your life exactly as you want with your intention to do the best you can and forgive yourself for making mistakes along the way.

After all, we are only human, but humanity is a beautiful thing. 🙂