One day melds into the next, and each day glides past like precious beads slipping off a string into the abyss of yesterday, escaping from our grasp to be caught no more.
We talk about living our lives. I talk about it, anyway. But do I really live? or am I just existing?
Mediocrity comes in many forms. Life can take on a sort of monotony especially if I spend it waiting for the next big thing to happen: the next paycheck, the next vacation, the next visit, the next long weekend, Christmas, Easter, summer. (Yawn). Routine is a great thing and can give structure to life, but too much routine can make my life blah and uninteresting. I go on auto-pilot, and I end up looking up at the calendar one day, and wondering where the month (or the season) went. Is it really less than six weeks to Christmas Day? Wow! The pressures of expectations for the future can weigh on me and cause me to slip into fretting, worrying about things that haven't happened and may not ever happen!
I forget to look after myself, to make time for me-care. I look after the urgent things, the things that scream at me to be done while my own insecurities convince me that my needs aren't as important as those things, and they'll get done "eventually." However, "eventually" usually doesn't happen unless I make time for it to happen. By the time I get around to it, something else intrudes and takes precedence. So, I never get around to it!
Dreams stay dreams. I find it hard to take time to even think about the small steps I want to take in order to put those dreams in motion, and even harder to take the time to actually take those steps.
Life just ... happens. And sometimes it happens without me being aware of it. I get into a rut, and keep doing what I always did, hoping to get a different result. Like that's going to work.
The operative word is Today. Start - today. Begin to live ... now. Not tomorrow. Today.
It's okay to ask for help; it's okay to make mistakes as I go. I can learn to let go of the errors and keep going, rather than give up in frustration.
Change will happen. The scenery does change. I know it; I feel it. It might not change as fast as I would like, but if I keep making those miniscule choices, I'll look up one day and think to myself, "Hey. That was living!"
And if that takes a while, perhaps I can just enjoy the journey instead of wishing myself at the finish line all the time. That will happen soon enough. That's the other thing about Today. It's Today; it's not next week, next year, ten years from now. It's today. That's where I can truly live.
We talk about living our lives. I talk about it, anyway. But do I really live? or am I just existing?
Existing versus Living
Mediocrity comes in many forms. Life can take on a sort of monotony especially if I spend it waiting for the next big thing to happen: the next paycheck, the next vacation, the next visit, the next long weekend, Christmas, Easter, summer. (Yawn). Routine is a great thing and can give structure to life, but too much routine can make my life blah and uninteresting. I go on auto-pilot, and I end up looking up at the calendar one day, and wondering where the month (or the season) went. Is it really less than six weeks to Christmas Day? Wow! The pressures of expectations for the future can weigh on me and cause me to slip into fretting, worrying about things that haven't happened and may not ever happen!
Dreams stay dreams. I find it hard to take time to even think about the small steps I want to take in order to put those dreams in motion, and even harder to take the time to actually take those steps.
Life just ... happens. And sometimes it happens without me being aware of it. I get into a rut, and keep doing what I always did, hoping to get a different result. Like that's going to work.
Making a start
Living on auto-pilot is easy; I need to face it. I also need to realize that easy isn't necessarily good. Living intentionally ... is hard. The trick about getting out of that rut is to make a start. It doesn't take a lot of brain power or even a lot of will power. It doesn't even take big changes. It takes a simple decision to put one foot in front of the other, to make tiny changes that are progressive.The operative word is Today. Start - today. Begin to live ... now. Not tomorrow. Today.
It's okay to ask for help; it's okay to make mistakes as I go. I can learn to let go of the errors and keep going, rather than give up in frustration.
Change will happen. The scenery does change. I know it; I feel it. It might not change as fast as I would like, but if I keep making those miniscule choices, I'll look up one day and think to myself, "Hey. That was living!"
And if that takes a while, perhaps I can just enjoy the journey instead of wishing myself at the finish line all the time. That will happen soon enough. That's the other thing about Today. It's Today; it's not next week, next year, ten years from now. It's today. That's where I can truly live.
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