I think that the secret to enjoying life is found in identifying what exactly it is that brings you inordinate amounts of pleasure. Too many of us aren’t enjoying life or living it as we dreamed it would be, simply because we have forgotten how to dream and how to relish in the things that bring us pleasure. It is when we can celebrate how alive we feel when we experience pleasure that we can start to understand ourselves and develop our dreams for this thing we call life.
Language and words make my heart beat faster; it doesn’t make sense, but they just do. They fill me with pleasure that is inexplicable, and that’s part of the beauty of pleasure, it doesn’t need to be explained or justified, it just needs to be felt. Today I got to spend forty minutes speaking in French to a new gym member who moved from France just last week to be a local au pair. Speaking and hearing French brings me more pleasure than I can possibly explain, and getting to do it today revived my spirit. The play of words and language is like a beautiful piece of art being unveiled at a symphony concert: it simply makes my soul come alive.
The truth is that my French is rough. It is no longer the fluent stream that it used to be when I lived outside of Bordeaux six years ago, when I lived, breathed, worked and dreamed in French. I now hodgepodge my subjunctive clauses, mix in a few Spanish conjugations, and blank out on basic vocabulary words, but in reality, I have well-maintained my French considering that I only get the opportunity to speak it two to three occasions per year.
Do not get in your own way out of fear of what others might think of you, or out of the lousy excuse of your own perfectionist nature. It is easy for me to get down on myself for my French not being what it was, but in all reality, such thinking would only rob me of the joy that French, no matter how perfect or imperfect it might be, brings me. If there is something that makes you absolutely come alive, relish in it for all that it is. Look beyond the imperfections that you see and just let yourself enjoy the pleasure that it brings you.
We all have been granted gifts of pleasure in our lives. Make sure you are in-tune enough with yourself and your passions to appreciate the pleasure given to you and don’t live life at such a fast pace that you miss out on the gifts you’ve been given.