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A song that inspires me to return to my Now moment:
The finish line is death. You are arrived, and at the same time, you will be arriving until the day that you die. Whatever you love, commit your life to it. If it is your heart’s true desire and calling, there is no rush. When you do land on the pink carpet of your wildest dreams, there will be a moment that precedes it — and a moment that follows it. Life is a wave that you flow forward through. Every moment a fork in the road. What are you choosing at every moment?
One day, you will experience a dream come true in an instant. Fifteen minutes will pass, and you will stand inside of your life, once again. It does not matter if you get your way, because in the end, we are all going to die. Whether or not your dreams come true, you are alive, and one day you will be dead. In the meantime, choose to notice the life you are living. Vote with your feet. Set your arrow to point towards the sun, the valley or the other side of the mountain. Enjoy every step. In the end, the distance is not what mattered most, nor the place you found yourself last. Instead, it was each step and your tender noticing of placing one foot in front of the other. Where did you stand? What did you find there? Can you remember what it felt like to feel the sun on your skin? Did you have the courage to feel it all? What smell will you miss the most? What was your favorite unanswered question?
You don’t have to try to be interesting, different or unique. Mostly because it's redundant to do so. You are quite literally the only you that exists. And here you are, berating yourself for not being more like someone else that you know or admire. Have you noticed yourself trying to be more of something that you are not? If so, why? If so, how? If yes, is it truly in the name of your expansion and joy? Or, is it something, simply put, you’d like to be able to name for yourself? You think it would be nice to be able to say that you are xyz or that you have done xyz. But you don’t want the journey to get there, you want the perception of being someone with that, who has that, or is that.
Notice the difference.
True desire means you are willing to travel the road of not having it. Egoic desire, on the other hand, just wants to be seen as something in particular. It doesn’t pay respect to the views on the way there. Take inspiration and run generously forward with your life. See your envy as an arrow that points you toward what you are capable of. Notice how open and large the field is. Also notice if you are, out of hate, or shame, or embarrassment, trying to be something that you are not because it looks nice on someone else. Own the fact that you prefer to eat and not cook. Own the fact that you rather use a calculator. Own the fact that you are competitive by nature. Own the fact that you never want to leave your hometown. Own the fact that you’ve never really wanted kids. Own the fact that on any given day you’d prefer Mac n Cheese for dinner. Own the fact that you couldn’t care less about having a career. Own the fact that you prefer to sleep in.
Let go of the obsolete posing and pretending to be anything less than who you are. Not only is it exhausting, it dilutes your one of a kind essence. Who you are is gorgeous, stop trying to tweak the way we see it. It's yours, and for good reason. Sure, there will always be room for improvement, and change. You’re a human for goodness sake. And! You are whole and complete as you are in this moment. Revel in it.
Tell the voice that tells you to give up to go kick rocks. Give it a name, give it a face, and recognize it as a force whose main intention is to keep you safe. Realize that this voice that snarls atrocities at you, can and will try to keep you safe by trying to tie you to anything familiar, even if what is familiar is wrong, disgusting, tiring, or life sucking. When it begins to speak, interrupt it, and say thanks but no thanks. I’ve got it from here. Then step forward into the rest of your unknown life knowing that anytime you are brave enough to traverse beyond the bounds of what you have known for something that you don't, something ugly will giggle at you, mocking your attempt to make you fear your curiosity. Your questions are worth living. Whenever you do something you have never done before, you expose yourself to the possibility of opportunity, expansion, revelation, new questions, and different answers. Do it scared.
Collect evidence for the things that you want to believe in. You want to believe in hope? Find things to hope for and reasons to hope for them. Yearn for something that is yours, and yours alone. You want to believe in love? Look for it all around you, everywhere you go. Notice the ways in which it already surrounds you. The doe who waits for her fawn. The plant whose leaves consistently inch towards the direction of the sun. You want a good story to tell? Listen to the birds and how they sing a song of love in the morning, just for you. Tell this story to anyone who asks about your morning, or anyone who will listen. You want to believe the best in people? Be the kind of person you want to meet in the world.
Acceptance is a practice. It is not a permanent solution, but rather, a door. You don’t have to settle in order to accept. You don’t have to quit in order to accept. You don’t have to change your mind in order to accept. Acceptance requires steady, ongoing, patience. You can accept something and still want something different. Acceptance says this is my here and now moment, yes, and within this moment in time there is a door that opens for me.
Listen to what your heart tells you. When you are sitting at the coffee shop, and you feel compelled to tell the ‘stranger’ who sits across from you that they are special, beautiful and needed in this world for no reason other than that your heart tells you that you must — run after them when they get up to leave, stop them in their tracks to tell them this. They will say, thank you so much, this means so much to me for reasons you do not know. You don’t need to know why. Most beautiful things exist beyond our own comprehension of them.
There will come a day when the days you have lived are more than the days you have left to live. There is no telling when that day will arrive. It’s different for each and everyone of us. Tomorrow is not a given for everyone. Only a select few. How do you want to live within that knowing? Knowing that day could be today? A recent conversation I overheard in a cafe went something like this I don’t know how long I’m going to live. I could die any day, tomorrow even. If I die poor, I die poor. I have chosen NOT to work more than three days a week. I am rich in time. I want this.
Invite inspiration into your life. Open up the windows to air out your apartment, change your sheets. Go on a night drive and look into every window lit up with golden light, plant vines hanging from the ceilings. Let wonder find you here. Find the nearest forest or park, sit and stare. Go to a garage sale without your wallet. Turn the music off, feel what finds you in the silence. Ask people impossible questions, ones that you yourself may not know how to answer. Fumble your words messily in an attempt to connect, with god, with a tree, with the person sitting in front of you. Take the pressure off, make shitty art! The Creator created creation to create creation of the Creator through creation Itself. Let it be the whole point, not a means to an end. Go play!
Thank you for being here. I really love you.
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