The Coolest Thing You've Ever Done

What is the coolest thing you’ve ever done? Not an easy question to answer! As I listened, I had no idea what I could respond with. I asked my son what his answer would be and he had a difficult time answering as well. So I thought I’d ask him, from his perspective, what he thought the coolest thing I’d ever done was. It was amazing for me to listen to his perspective. I thought it was meeting and spending the evening with a famous actor. He didn’t even count that as cool. His immediate response was that I changed professions. A response I had was traveling up to the Yukon Territories to work and learn about the people and customs there. He agreed that was pretty cool : )

Last night I was invited to watch the movie “Lost in Translation”. As I was watching, I wondered where it was going, what the plot was. And then, as the movie progressed I realised I didn’t care if there was a plot or not. The movie was evoking all sorts of thoughts and feelings, reminding me of where I am in my life right now as well as why I made some of the choices I did along the way. If I had seen such a movie earlier in my life, it might have bothered me and parts of it would have come too close for comfort.

I watched this when I was supposed to.

I was sorry I didn’t have time afterwards to discuss and reflect about what I saw in it, but instead took the time to write insights the movie triggered in me.

Coming full circle I’m thinking back to my answer about the coolest thing I’ve ever done. It’s less of a tangible right now and more a way of being. I think the coolest thing I’ve ever done is to open myself up to life and living it. To share who I am with those around me, and open myself up to learning as much as I can about myself, and life.

As I reflected back on the past few years, I’ve changed a great deal. Someone close to me once said I used to write just to write and get information down on paper (or ‘puter), but now I write from the heart, not the head. One can’t learn about self through facts alone. One learns through experience and emotion. The more you open yourself up to that, the more grounded and less reactive you’ll be. A wonderful place to live life from.

So what’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done? I would love to hear! You didn’t think I’d let you off the hook, did you?

Best….
Donna Karlin