What is Living Intentionally?

(There is a question at the very end of this post: I am very curious as to your thoughts and opinions on Living Intentionally)

Last Spring I read Ann Voskamp's "One Thousand Gifts" and kept track of my own One Thousand Gifts. The premise of the book and keeping a list it is to live fully in the ever day. But I keep hearing this other phrase popping up here and there on different blogs, "Living Intentionally": What does that mean?

I tried googling the phrase and this is what I found: "Done with intention or on purpose; intended" {I always thought it was bad practice to include the word in the definition}. Further on down the list was this post from my friend Trina's blog, which is probably the best thing I'm going to find as to explaining Living Intentionally.

Living a life that is not "fly by the seat of your pants", that is not about just surviving, but that involves directions, motivation, and thriving, seeking to reach or obtain some particular end or goal. So we have a definition, an idea of what this "Living Intentionally" is, but still what is it?

This is what I'm struggling with. I know what they're talking about, I understand the concept, but I am totally lost as to the application. I continued following to this post, which discusses examples of Intentional Living for the author.

Which made me realize: Intentional Living is NOT about a hard and fast set of strictures that one deems necessary to follow, but more of a personal belief system, a mission statement, if you will. A creed which you choose to follow and then not permit other things to distract you from.

Deciding what things in life you will strive for and not permitting all of the other busy work of life to clutter things up and take away from your core values. For some that may be a decision to eat organically, what church/religion they are a part of, family time, where they grocery shop, or any number of both small and major things.

When put that way, the idea of Living Intentionally suddenly becomes a lot less daunting and a lot more realistic. I'm sure most people are Living Intentionally in some ways already, whether they realize it or not, whether it's good or not. The new question is: Is your Intentional Living creating the best and most positive lifestyle? Or are you living a life of Un-Intentional Living, being tossed about constantly?

I think, if we're honest, most of us would admit that we do have elements, if not whole parts, in our lives that are not Intentional, there are certainly seasons when Intentional Living is much more limited. To me, part of Intentional Living assumes an element of constant control over our values and desires, and, unfortunately, this is just not realistic for most things.

While I'm thinking about how to Live Intentionally, I realize that right now there are only a few things in my life that I can be Intentional about: Praying, laundry, preparing food, bathing (myself and Ave), and going to the bathroom...A very impressive list.

This season of my life does not allow for me to be Intentional about anything. Being {almost} 30 weeks pregnant with triplets really limits my ability to Live Intentionally. Right now we're in survival mode and I'm hoping and praying it gets a bit better after the triplets are born (but I'm not holding my breath).

Now that I realize what it means, in my {probably wrong} opinion, to Live Intentionally I feel like I can work toward something (which will most certainly be another post, some other time).

What is Living Intentionally for you? What do you chose to be Intentional about in your own life?