Doing what we love—and actually feeling it
I found myself sitting with a question today—one borrowed from the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
She wrote that while in Italy—learning the language, enjoying the food, and more importantly, re-relearning how to enjoy her life—she asked herself:
“Is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a little while?”
It’s a simple question.
But like most simple questions, it has a way of sticking around longer than you expect… like a song that won’t stop playing in your head.
This morning started early.
I met up with the guys from the bike group. Nothing extraordinary—just a good ride. About an hour and a half, twenty-two miles, steady pace. The kind of ride where nobody says much, but everyone understands what we’re there for.
Afterward, I came home, showered, had breakfast, and picked up my book again. I reread that passage and let it sit a little longer this time.
Lunch came and went.
Then a recovery nap.
Then that quiet stretch of the afternoon, when the day begins to lean toward evening and you start taking stock without really meaning to.
That’s when the question came back.
Is it such a bad thing …..for me ….to live like this for just a little while?
My first answer was easy.
No.
Of course not.
There’s nothing wrong with a day like this—movement, food, rest, a little thinking, a little reading. No urgency. No pressure to prove anything.
By most standards, it’s a pretty good day.
But that wasn’t really the question I was wrestling with.
Not underneath it.
What I was really asking myself was something more specific:
When I choose to do the things I say I love… do I actually feel the joy in them?
Or is it the idea of doing them that I enjoy most?
Because the truth is, a day like this can go two ways.
You can move through it, checking the boxes—ride, eat, rest, read—and at the end of it feel like the day slipped by a little too easily.
Or…
You can step into it.
There are days on the bike when everything just lines up.
The bike feels tuned like a Rolex watch—gears smooth, chain humming, wheels true. Every shift lands where it should. Cadence, braking, the road beneath you… it all feels connected. The bike isn’t something you’re riding—it’s something you’re part of.
You feel it.
You know it while it’s happening.
And then there are other days.
You show up on time.
Ride with the group.
Take your pull at the front.
Call out the potholes and the glass.
Finish the route.
Check the box.
Both rides look the same from the outside.
But only one of them is fully lived.
I think that’s where I found myself today.
Not regretting how I spent the time.
Not wishing I had done more.
Just realizing that there’s a difference between living a day and being present inside of it.
Elizabeth’s question was about permission.
Mine, I think, is about something else.
Can I live, spend, pass, take, … a day like this without feeling the need to measure it?
That’s a quieter challenge.
Because for a long time, I’ve measured my days by effort, output, progress—what got done, what moved forward.
And there’s value in that.
But there’s also something to be said for a day that doesn’t ask anything from you… except that you show up for it.
Maybe that’s what I’m learning.
That a full day doesn’t always come from doing more.
Sometimes it comes from noticing more.
So no…
It’s not such a bad thing to live like this for a little while.
The better question might be:
Can I let it be enough while I’m in it?
And maybe, just maybe…
If you do, you’ll find it’s not a bad way to find something deeper.
The Bow Legged Blogger 