Are you creating Onion Days?
I had a pretty bad day on Saturday. I coach 8th-grade football on Saturday mornings. And we lost. Like nothing-went-right lost. Like The-Bad-News-Packers lost. Like that-TV-show-about-the-plane- crash-on-that-island lost.
Then I couldn’t get myself motivated to do anything productive the rest of the day. By Saturday night I felt like I not only lost the football game, but I lost the rest of the day as well. Unfortunately, when you lose a day you never get it back, Jack.
But on Sunday, I bounced like Flubber. Before I went to bed Sunday night, I reflected on my day. And I realized that my Sunday was as good as my Saturday was bad. I had created an Onion Day. A day with layer after layer after layer of good stuff.
My Onion Day.
I woke up early to write and publish a blog post about the importance of planting yourself in soil that enables you to thrive.
Then my family and I went to the 9am church service. (God knows that service helps you get the most out of your morning.)
We took the slow Sunday drive home along Lake Michigan, avoiding the usual interstate route. It’s the automotive version of stopping to smell the roses. Although you can’t actually smell roses at 25 miles per hour.
I cleaned out a significant part of our basement that had become cluttered with random stuff during the renovation we did on our home over the past year.
I watched some of the Patriots -Bengals game, and watched my Pats look like a real team again for the first time since Tom Brady left to spend more time looking at himself in the mirror.
I helped my son Johann think through a writing and research project for an AP class he is taking.
I took a long walk with my wife Dawn, son Magnus and dog Lola along Lake Michigan. Which looks like an ocean, but is unsalted and shark-free.
I picked up fun food for dinner for the family, because I was too hungry to wait for the ribs Dawn was planning to make for our Sunday dinner. (And apparently, a commercial I watched during the football game worked on me.)
I broke down game footage from our team’s ugly loss so we could coach the team on how to do things better next time. (If they don’t do better I will cry myself to sleep every Saturday night until November.)
I talked to my daughter Ava on the phone on the last day of her 18th year and caught up on her day at college.
I worked out, like LFMAO would say.
The Reflection
I looked back at my day. And I realized that I had a near-perfect Onion Day.
It was a great Onion Day, a great way to bounce, and a great example of time well spent.
Key Takeaway
The best days are Onion Days. Those are the days when you layer in as many of your favorite and most important activities. Know what your perfect Onion Day entails. Then work to create as many of them as you can. That’s how you build a great and rewarding life without regrets.
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+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.
Originally published at http://adamalbrecht.blog on September 10, 2024.