What’s in an Ideal Day?
When you hear the word ‘ideal’ what springs to mind? Is it – a standard of perfection or excellence? Or is it something that exists only in the imagination? For how often do we come across something perfect or excellent in a world tilted on its axis and filled with lots of bent folks? Maybe experiences become ideal only after we’ve had them and filed away the momentary perfection in our gray matter – to be brought out as proof that the ideal touched us. Can one plan an ideal day, or is it something only the universe can manufacture? And that’s what’s on the menu this week, folks – our search for the ultimate ideal day.
I’d like an ideal day to sneak up and catch me unawares – for to see it coming would make me too anxious that I’d never be able to live up to its standards. In fact, I’d like to be in bed with sleep almost putting me over the edge when I realize I’ve had the ideal day. Hmm, how does one go about that? Wouldn’t that take away from the experience you wonder, to not be aware of perfection as I’m living it? Well, how many of us actually know what an ideal day would be like? Is it a day where everything on your list gets done? A day where you get everything you want? A day where you finally reach that elusive goal? Me thinks not, my peeps. An ideal day is one where even if everything that happens isn’t golden, there will be isolated pure 24k gold nuggets that you find perfect in themselves.
An ideal day will likely involve your favourite activity, place, friends, foods and family. So — mine would be a family reunion at the beach with a braai in the afternoon, a beachcombing find of grass green sea glass, a dolphin sighting, an ice-cream cone with a flake bar in it for dessert, to see my cat chase seagulls, to have many conversations with people I haven’t seen in 10 years, and finally, to watch a beautiful sunset that ends with a green flash. For this to happen in reality the milky way stars would all have to align and I’d have to call in all my favours with the universe, and probably make a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago. Because that’s what a planned ideal day will cost you, the moon and stars. For now, I’ll remain in stasis with my mica-flecks of fool’s gold less-than-ideal days and hope my fortune changes for the better.
