You know when one finds oneself looking at one’s life, we tend to have two sights, forward and backwards. We spend much of our time focused on the future and what is to come. Always planning and anxious about where we are going and trying to ensure that we are doing the groundwork to get to where we are going. We spend so much time immersed in the what if’s and little time in the now. We spend equally as much time studying our past and trying to piece together the areas we could have done better, the things we have experienced and the things we wish had been different. There is a very powerful quote I live by that reads: God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
Though there is great joy found in planning for your future and ensuring you live out your dreams and ambitions, there too is the tragedy of forgetting the here and the now. In the same breath, there is much to gain from ensuring you understand your past and sieve from it the lessons you will carry with you, but there is usually an immense amount of regret, wishing and uncertainty. I find that we rarely consciously decide to live in the now, the here and enjoy it because our vision is always in two places, the past and the future.
When they say that we ought to spend more time grateful for what we have, it just stems from a place of gratitude, but it too puts you in the present. It allows you to look around you and think of what you have that old-you had wished for and future-you will be grateful for.
When you look at your life right now, there is a lot you have right now that you once upon a time wished you had. Be it getting an education, having a job, being self-employed, having strong-knit friendships, loving yourself or learning yourself. There are strides you have taken that have brought you to the here, the now.
What if you immersed yourself consciously into the now? Stripping yourself of the anxiety that comes with looking to the future or unshackling yourself from the things you could have done better in the past. What if you decided that you would much rather ensure that you breathe in your current life and live your life fully. Completely immersed in the present, because you cannot predict the future nor change the past.
So you focus on what makes you happy right now, you focus on what you need to do right now, you trust that everything you do today, here, now, will one day make sense and you trust the process.
You promise yourself to look around you and just let gratitude fill your heart. You are healthy, you can love, you can learn, you can grow and you can laugh. You are able and you are alive.
May you live a life so full and so present, that every single day starts to feel alive again.
With love,
Mavis