"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. Including you."
-Anne Lamott

As a licensed cosmetologist, I often find myself reminding my customers many times a day to relax. Relax their hands, relax their feet, and so on, but what surprises me the most is how many of them don't even realize how tense they have become throughout the day.

This is something I believe we all struggle with from time to time.

Juggling busy work schedules, kids, and the never-ending piles of laundry and hunger for food, we find ourselves overworked, stressed and left feeling slightly unfulfilled. As if life has become more of a chore than a sense of being. As if the only way to escape the daily hells we face is to take a vacation far away and if only for a little while, forget what lies waiting for us when we return.

But this is not a way I want to live my life

And hopefully neither do you.

This revelation would not hit me; however, until the day I watched my father die. Up until that point, I had lived my life in a frenzy. Running from place to place, different activities and always stressing for more money and more opportunity. And while I find it noble to be such an "energizer bunny" in life, I realized very quickly that this wasn't something I could sustain well into my (hopefully) 90's.

And so I decided to do the very thing I never thought I could. I decided to find peace in the silence. I decided to smell the roses.

I decided to take the dreaded gap year

And I have never felt more pride in a single decision in my life until now. Because for the first time in my life I have decided to do something wholly and simply for me and MY benefit alone. And I would recommend it to absolutely anyone.

Take the time to find what it is you love, and cut out the things and people that you do not. This life is far too short to be wasting it on failed relationships and "almosts".

It is meant to be full of adventure. Whether that be in camping throughout the United States or backpacking through Europe or Asia and discovering new foods and cultures completely unknown to you beforehand.

It is meant to be full of laughter. With people who bring you joy, with movies that inspire you and activities that motivate you to run farther, paint more or drink freely.

It is meant to be worthy of downtime. Take time out of your day to simply breathe. Remember what it is you stand for and who it is you want to be. To listen to the silence, or the lack thereof, full of crickets, birds chirping or buses driving by.

But most importantly, it is meant to be whatever it is you want it to be

Because despite your greatest fears, YOU are the ultimate determiner of how you spend your days. And YOU are the only person who will advocate for you in the way that you need.

So take the time to figure out what it is that you love. Spend the energy, money or whatever it is you need to stop and smell your roses. Because life is going to fly by regardless of how you spend it so why not spend it with the things and people you love the most. After all, you just might find yourself falling in love with life all over again.