Being born in 1981 in the town of Fort Payne, Alabama meant that my childhood and teenage years took place where the legendary country band Alabama was always part of the backdrop.

Some of my earliest memories in life include me regularly performing a concert to the four walls of my parents’ bedroom as I stood up on their bed using it as my stage, while the vinyl record of Alabama’s 1984 album Roll On played on the stereo.

But the Alabama song that has stuck with me my entire life was actually one that came out when I was eleven years old in 1992: “I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why)”.

It’s one of those songs that is easy to assume is light and fun because of its upbeat tempo. Instead, it’s actually a pretty deep song that involves a person addressing the paradoxes of their own human existence. It feels inspired by the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.

Out of nowhere in the Alabama band’s song catalog is this realization that life is crowded with meaningless distractions:

All I really gotta do is live and die
But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why

And now, more than 30 years after the song was released, this concept is even more relevant. At this point in my life, my focus has been narrowed to simply enjoy the life I have right here in front of me.

I think there is something almost unsettling, at least for me, to realize:

“Oh, I don’t have to try as hard as I used to, for life to be enjoyable: simply, as is.”

For the past couple of years now, I have been much more aware of so many of the meaningless distractions that I can just swipe left to. So many things we are taught to fear… we don’t have any control over anyway. So many things we’re taught to love… they only cause us to self-destruct. Our peace of mind has a price that is paid through our attention… if we let it.

For so many years, life was on “hard mode”. But now I’m in my mid 40s and I have genuinely earned plenty of “experience points”, meaning that I’ve overcome enough challenges to be confident and secure; despite the chaos that life seems to constantly present to us.

I could pray for God to help me understand what my purpose is, but it seems pretty apparent, as if He would say…

“Just enjoy the life you have in front of you. Right here, right now. This is it.”

And if that is what He would tell me, then I wonder if ironically, that’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do:

To stop running. To stop racing. To just relax and appreciate the view.