I had a 50-minute drive home from gun training on back roads, which I really enjoy in middle Tennessee. Tree-lined two-lane roads, and where there aren’t trees there are huge green fields. The occasional house or housing development.
I had the windows down and the sunroof open, 78 degrees and a sunny day.
It was glorious.
My friend who’d trained me is ex-military and ex-law enforcement. I don’t shoot as often as I should, and he very patiently took me through a few steps and did his best to drill them into me through repetition.
It was a good couple of hours.
But for a while during that drive, I was focused on the car in front of me. Driving the exact speed limit. Except of course when the dividing line became dashed for passing, and he sped up until we were past it. When I did have a chance to pass, there were oncoming cars. I was irritated for probably 10 or 15 minutes.
Finally I broke out of that. I took a breath, and looked past his car. At the road ahead of me. The cloudless sky, warm air, and the trees and green fields zooming past.
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”
Psalm 19:1
I thought about what God had created for our enjoyment. How blessed and grateful I am for my wife, my friends, a nice home in a beautiful part of the country.
I felt joy.
Minutes earlier I felt irritation because I was focused on the thing right in front of me. A thing I had no control over. When I took my focus away from that, the car was still in front of me, but I just wasn’t looking at it anymore.
You’re so intensely focused on the thing in front of you. The next bill to pay. The doctor’s appointment that interrupts the middle of your day. It starts to feel like that’s your whole life.
Bills and appointments are important and need your attention. But they can occupy more of your attention than they need, especially in moments when there’s nothing you can do about them.
I think it takes real effort to not do this. The busyness of life makes it easy to feel disconnected from the things that really matter. Your wife bringing you a cup of coffee unasked, the warmth of the sun on your skin while you walk across a parking lot to a store.
Ecclesiastes comes to mind:
“I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.”
Ecclesiastes 3:12-13
Don’t get me wrong, anyone who knows me knows I’m not going to tell you that you should walk around every day in a state of unending joy. There is work to be done, things to do. I’m just telling you to remember to pick your head up once in a while, and take in the bigger picture. Think about what you have instead of what you don’t have.
I notice feeling joy most often when I’m outside. I don’t have to be in the woods, on a hike. Where I live there are a lot of trees, fields, and open sky, and all I have to do is get out of my head, forget my to-do list for a moment, and look out at all of it.
I gave that car 10 or 15 minutes of a gorgeous 78-degree afternoon. That’s all he’s getting.
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Vic built and sold ScreenRant.com and GameRant.com, then rebuilt himself in his sixties.
He writes at TheRedeemedSecondHalf.com for men rebuilding the second half of life.