Smelling roses

"Roses stink!" said my friend.

There was a gasp of surprise from the assembled lot of friends at this blasphemy. Me, I nodded knowingly.

You see, you get this advice in life about taking time to smell the roses. You understand, you pine for the time to be able to smell the roses, but with your nose so firmly to the grindstone that it cannot even smell shit. On those brief times when you can actually smell the roses, they smell divine.

And one day you retire, quit or get chucked out. Then...

You see, smelling roses is fine when you hurriedly draw in a noseful of the fragrance before the grindstone reclaims your nose. But when ALL you can do is smell the roses, when there is nothing else for you to do...

"ROSES STINK!" yelled my friend again.

That, though, is typical of a guy who thinks of smelling roses in the traditional way...as a way of living each moment without converting every activity into a competitive activity with winning as its purpose. AND lacks the mindset to do ANYTHING that does not involve making money or gaining attention or having measurable progress measures or, ideally, all of the above with fame thrown in, if possible.

Alas, I am a old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud, who believes that living in the moment does not mesh very well with setting goals or entering into invisible competitions in your own mind against the rest of the uncaring world! AND, in fact, reveling in the idea of not having to do so. So, roses smell divine to me despite having nothing else to do but smell roses.

The successful ones, who have to compete and still have nothing to do but smell the roses...they can CONVERT smelling roses to suit. 

As in,

"I have started smelling a dozen roses in a day. Within the next six months, I aim to reach a hundred roses a day."

OR

"Well, really, ANYONE can smell roses in their garden. I have smelled them in Rashtrapati Bhavan, I aim to hit the White House next and, perhaps, I shall do it in Elon Musk's space habitat after that."

OR

"I have smelled all the roses in Asia, I intend hitting Europe and USA next and, after that,..."

OR

"I intend smelling every possible breed of rose. From the old garden roses to the wild roses to the modern garden roses be they tea roses or grandiflora roses or floribunda roses or..."

AND THAT is how you smell the roses. Really!