The other night, I saw the new movie Sex And The City 2. If you haven't seen it, I promise you that this will not be one of those spoiler moments. If you don't want to know anything about the plot of the movie, though, I would suggest that you read no further.
I didn't really like the first Sex And The City movie. I was a big fan of the television show. I thought it was brilliantly written.
Growing up in New York City, I found the show to be an excellent portrayal of single life in New York City. Some of the best times I had as a single guy was during my 20's (in the mid 1980's) when I was living in New York City.
It's interesting. Watching Sex And The City 2 made me realize that as you get older, you want your life to be easy. You've earned that path. You worked really hard to build up your career and your family. You worked really hard on yourself -- understanding who you are and for what you stand.
As you get older, I think you really cherish those moments on the couch. There's a great scene in the movie where Mr. Big had come home with takeout food on a night when Carrie wanted him to go with her to some movie premier.
He sits down on the couch, flips on the television and says "You go." She, of course, really wanted him to go with her. He says, "I've done thirty years of chasing the night. I've had thirty years of being seen. I like my couch time."
A lot of us think that couch time ruins a relationship. In reality, that couch time -- that decompressing time next to the one you love -- spent talking, laughing, joking, listening to music or watching movie, is great.
Now if you're a couple that spends all of your time together on the couch watching television, then that very well could ruin the relationship. Taking some time to do this together, is both healthy and well-deserved.
As you get older, you really earn that time. You earned having your life be easier.
Life doesn't have to be a struggle anymore. Life doesn't have to be so grueling. You don't need to chase life.
I think in our 20's, we're chasing life. We're chasing our career. We're chasing love. We're even chasing ourselves because we don't know ourselves yet.
As we get older and we know who we are and what we're all about, we earn that couch time. We've earned being able to just sit back and really make life easy. The symbolism of this couch time is really decompression and eliminating stress.
I like to live a very stress-free life.
I think we've all earned it. Once you get to know yourself -- who you are, what you like, what you dislike, and what you can (and can't) do -- then you've basically earned your time on that couch. All of us have earned that time. As we age, we have earned the right to make our life easier instead of more difficult.
It's a wonderful feeling to know what you can do and what you can't do. Being a motivator who has spoken all over the world coaching people, I always tell people that the words "I can't" is something that should not be in your vocabulary. There is always a choice.
I don't believe that there is anything I can't do. There are certain things, however, that I don't have a desire to do based on either experiencing them before or just knowing myself well enough to know I don't want to do them.
When you know yourself that well, you've earned the right to sit back, take a night off and enjoy the couch time. You deserve your life to be as easy as you want it to be, and that couch is a really comfortable place to sit, decompress and enjoy that well-earned time.