It’s a common theme that the road to chronic happiness
begins and ends in the now.
It’s a very short road.
Now is now.
It’s really all there is.
The rest we just imagine.
Everyone says, “I wish
I could just live in the now and not worry so much about the past that was and
the future that’s still to be”, pesky Dickesonian Christmas ghosts aside.
But we don’t…for the most part, we don’t.
It’s just too difficult.
None of us can control the now; we just have to accept it.
Oh sure, we can throw ourselves on the ground and bang our
arms and legs and spew expletives to ourselves, but that never works…trust me.
The past and the future, however, exist only as figments dwelling
in our minds—they probably rent and don’t even own—and that we can control…or
at least control how we perceive them.
There's a comfort in that, albeit a negative one, so we linger in those nasty, messy apartments, way too often,
mucking about in resentment and fear, and fail to hear the music of now.
It’s a problem.
Having said that, however…mostly because it’s a Monday and I
have to say something—at least that’s what I tell myself—I’m not that sure,
anymore, that’s entirely the case.
I think we do live in the now, much more than we give
ourselves credit for. It’s just not all that we expect of the now.
And it’s that word right there that causes so much of the
problem…EXPECT.
We expect now to be a certain way…and we all know that’s
rarely the case.
And when the now is not what we expect, we get thrown for a
loop and immediately, to quote Scotty Fitz…“We beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past.”
I guess because, again, there’s some kind
of comfort in the past…the comfort of already knowing the outcome.
Not a very optimistic view if you
ask me, yet one that’s more than a little familiar.
But the same past with which we find such
solace in, this now, was once that now…the same one that we probably weren’t all that pleased
with, back then, either.
Yet in this now it seems
preferable…to what, or why, I’m not sure.
Back then we were living in the
now, surviving, living, breathing…tirelessly paddling our oars, up stream, an
inch at a time, in search of the perfect gift of…now…just like we are today.
But we fail to realize that the
real gift, imperfect as it may appear, is in the journey itself.
Not a new thought, but one that
bears repeating.
And maybe the key is this…there is no
rule that says the journey needs to be hard, or harder than it should be. We don’t have to beat against the
current, getting nowhere fast.
We actually can control the now, turn
the boat around, put the oars away, and follow the stream easily towards our destination…the
one we never expected.
The water runs in one direction
and no one has figured out a way to change that.
Don’t like the now?
Just wait…it changes with every
breath.
Expect nothing…experience everything...every bend, every dip, every rise.
Now…that’s not so hard.
Is it?
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Nice tone to this one. Love the green light at the end of Daisy's dock!
ReplyDeleteEasier to write about than practice, though, huh….
DeleteNow vanishes speedier than a nonosecond. And it becomes the past. All the nows pile up in the past. We exist like the folks in the frames of the old movies. Perhaps we are starring in movies being watched by big-eyed extra-terrestrials.
ReplyDeleteSo that’s why I never seem to catch up,,,,
DeleteAnd why I get all those odd fan lettrs I can't understand.....
A little bird told me that you have a huge fan club. Better watch out for UFOs in your vicinity.
Delete