“I’ve had a long day” is a phrase that has always been associated with having a bad day. Long days tend to be the days that are full. They can be filled with physical labor, emotions or just busyness.
“The days are long, but the years go by quickly” is a phrase people with older kids tell me about my young kids. I tend to think about it on the days where I’ve had two kids who cried more than normal that day, or just the days when nothing seems to go as planned. (We have quite a few of those currently.)
The summer is full of long days for forage producers. Long days repairing equipment, watering fields or managing grazing animals. The days when the fields grow the fastest are filled with activity, and balancing family, work and any other activities you choose to devote your time to can be tricky.
Those long days are the ones where the memories are made. They are the days where we get a chance to wake up and fill our time with as much of the things we are passionate about as possible.
On the long days when you are dealing with downed fences, leaky waterlines and the million other things that can distract you from accomplishing your plan, those are the days that you get more hours in the day to pursue what you are passionate about.
I’m in the stage of life where I’m doing my best to embrace the long days. Trying to remind myself that the days when they didn’t nap are the ones that we got to spend more time together.
The long days at work are when I can’t seem to stay focused long enough to get an article written, but they are also the days where I’m lucky enough to spend the day answering emails from people I’m fortunate enough to work with.
The long days are the ones that we can consider ourselves blessed to be busy. With work to keep us occupied, people who are worthy of our attention and things we enjoy putting our time into.
With the season of long days approaching, don’t get lost in all of the busyness. Those days are filled with things that have a place in your life for a reason. Even if that reason isn’t obvious now, one day most of it will make sense, and the things that don’t make sense won’t matter anymore.
As Gregory McKeown once said, “Take a deep breath. Get present in the moment and ask yourself what is important this very second.”
Remember these words on a long day, and remember how blessed we are to spend our long days working toward things we are passionate about.
