Occupy the Moment

We need to be more mindful of the moments we are in. All too often, we spend our time thinking about the past or worrying about the future. Neither of these do any real good, but doing them causes us to lose track of the moment.

Our life is a series of moments strung together. Many people go through life without ever really experiencing any of these moments and because of this, spend most of their life unfulfilled and dissatisfied. It is impossible to be satisfied with what you are doing now if you are spending your time wishing you did something different yesterday or worrying that you won't be able to do what you want tomorrow. We can go through our entire lives thinking about yesterday and tomorrow, but never really living today. We shouldn't.

In the end, we will look back at the moments of our life that mean the most to us. I know I want to have as many moments as possible to spend my time remembering. I know I won't think about the times spent worrying, but I will focus on the times I enjoyed by being one with the moment. Instead of occasionally having these times, we need to make sure we are having them on a daily basis.

Get up and watch the sunrise. Enjoy the sunset. Laugh more. Have a leisurely lunch with friends. Go on a walk. Spend time with loved ones. Have coffee and conversation. Cook an amazing dinner. Go out to eat. Plan a trip. Do whatever it is that you love to do and just enjoy doing it. Stop thinking about everything else going on in your life and spend time just being in the moment, letting the feelings overwhelm your senses.

Stop placing value on your life based on the number of hours you work or the amount of money you make or all the shit you own. There is way more to life than traffic and money and cell phones and meetings and job titles and salaries. There are moments in time that will live with you forever. There are people you will never forget. There are meals you will want to eat again and again. There are amazingly beautiful sunsets. There are personal goals to accomplish. There are unbelievable concerts. There are long walks with friends discussing life.

These moments are the really important things in life. Don't spend your life missing them...

Tomorrow

Way too much of our time is spent worrying about tomorrow. We look forward to when we accomplish our goals and have the money to do the things we want to do and feel as if we have finally succeeded. We are constantly planning and worrying and hoping and dreaming and wishing, but we spend too little time enjoying what is happening right now. We lose sight of what we have and what we love and what we do.

We have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Hell, we don't even know for sure there will be a tomorrow. We can spend our entire lives living for tomorrow or we can spend our lives embracing the now and enjoying what today brings. What would you want to do if you knew there would be no tomorrow or next month or next year? Would you continue to live the life you currently lead or would you do something different?

Why do we need this knowledge to do what we really want to do? Besides you, is there anything stopping you from living in the moment and enjoying every last second of life? No matter how much you plan and work and hope, everything could come crashing down in an instant. Everything you are working so hard for could never happen. The people around you could disappear. What would you miss if it were gone? Do you celebrate it as much as you should?

I'm not saying that we shouldn't work and hope and dream and plan for the future. I am also not saying that your goals aren't reachable. I don't mean that working hard is a waste of time. All of these things are necessary to live the life you want to live. But, and this is a really big but, you have to enjoy what you have today. You have to slow down and spend time with those you love and make time to do the things you love to do. You have to stop letting stupid, little shit bother you. You have to smile more. You have to enjoy what is happening around you (and if you don't, then change the scenery so you do).

You can spend all of your time worrying about tomorrow and never get the chance to enjoy today. No one wants to spend their life worrying and never enjoying. Don't wait until you have more money or more time or a better job or a better house to enjoy what you have. Don't let anything stop you from doing the things you need to do to be happy. Don't wait until it is too late to enjoy life...you have permission to start today.

Chase Your Dreams

Dreams are amazing. Now, I am not writing about the dreams you have at night where you are a pirate or running around a school full of missiles and guns or being chased by some crazy person in a mask. The dreams I am writing about are the ones we have when we are awake. These are the dreams of where we want our life to go or what we want to do. The most important dreams we have are the ones when we are awake.

Dreams give us hope. Dreams give us goals. Dreams motivate us. Dreams are what help us slog through another humdrum day. Dreams allow us to yearn for something bigger or better or different. Depending on the day, dreams can change. Some days, I dream of owning a food truck and other days a book store/coffee shop. Some days I dream of being a working writer and still in others, I dream of owning a quaint vegan bed and breakfast on the beach. In the same way food fuels our body, dreams fuel our mind.

The difficult thing about dreams is they require action. Without working towards our dreams, they become something different, something darker, something mocking. If we choose to do nothing, to not attempt to capture our dreams, they become bitter and steal our hopes and motivations. The dreams become something we can't envision reaching and we become cynical towards them. They point out our flaws and laugh as we convince ourselves we could never reach them. They take away everything they once gave and it is our fault.

We may not be able to do everything we dream of doing, but we can damn well try. Our dreams can change, but they should change because we have moved on to another dream realizing the one we were working on isn't quite what we wanted. They should never change because we gave up believing we could do it. We've all had dreams we gave up on. For many of us, they still haunt us. We should know how much it hurts to give up on a dream and strive to never do it again. We don't want to be haunted by an ever-growing litany of dreams we never really chased.

Your dreams can shape your life. You can continue to give up on them or you can start spending your time chasing them. You can work towards your dreams or you can stay where you are at. Chasing your dreams will give you experience and hope and motivation. Giving up will give you nothing. Chasing your dreams is much more difficult, but will reward you with moments in time emblazoned in your memory. Giving up is easier, but will give you nothing. We can talk about chasing our dreams all we want, but until we start acting on them, nothing really changes. The question you should ask yourself is: "Which dream will I start chasing today?"  

100

Welcome to post 100! When I started here, I wasn't too sure what it was going to be or if I would continue with it. For a while, I stopped posting to it at all and went with a Tumblr blog as I was usually just reposting other people's thoughts and insights. It took a while, but this fall, I wanted to see if I had anything of my own to say. Writing here became a habit and the last fifty-some posts have been in the same number of days. I haven't missed a day since late October and for me, this is quite an accomplishment.

I think writing, but especially blogging, is a somewhat selfish act. The act of grabbing the thoughts flowing through my head and getting them on paper is a type of meditation for me (hence the title of this blog). I write because I feel better when I write. I write because it allows me to work through things and see ideas I wouldn't be able to see if they were just traveling as figments of my imagination. I write because I love to write. I love knowing people are reading what I have to write and this helps to keep fuel in the tanks and allows me to write more. Many of the posts you will find here are deeply personal and many of the topic points are things I struggle with in my life. Writing this blog is a cathartic act, but I hope any readers will walk away with their own ideas or thoughts or musings, too.

I wish I could give you all the answers to life. I wish I could tell you how to always ignore fear or find fulfillment or find happiness or do the work or think for yourself or stand up for yourself or be better than you can dream or do something amazing. What I have realized in writing this blog is no one really has the answers. No one can give you a blueprint for your life. No one can tell you which path to follow or even how to find a path to follow. We are all in this together. We are all spinning round and just trying to do the best we can. We all fear and hope and dream and wish. We all want to be great. We all want to do something important. We all want to take the first step to the rest of our life. We all want to do more. If any of the posts I have written have helped to make you think or dream or hope or try, then I have done more than I could ever wish.

Whatever happens, I will continue to write. I will continue to put my thoughts on paper and will share them with the world. In this blog, you are going to find conflicting arguments and probably ideas that don't make sense. I just hope you can find something of value in all these ramblings. If you do, share them. If you like this blog, share it with others. If you don't like it, then I thank you for stopping by and wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors. Go out and live life with passion and abandon. We only get to try this once, let's make lasting memories and leave knowing we did the best we could.

Endurance

Moving from good to great isn't usually about talent or who you know or what you do (though these can all help), it is about endurance. It is about putting in the work when it becomes difficult or monotonous or terrifying. You can have all the talent in the world, but without the ability to push through, to find your second (or third or fourth) wind, you will not be able to move to the next level. Are you willing to put in the work?

It takes 10,000 hours of practice to truly master something. This could be a sport or a musical instrument or writing or surgery or anything else you can think of. To reach greatness, you have to put in a lot of time and a lot of work. Much of this work may require you to toil in obscurity. You have to be able to get up each morning and force yourself to do whatever it is you need to do to become great. You need the motivation to continue to practice when no one is looking. You need the motivation to practice, no matter what is happening in your life. You have to put in the work, even if the people around you think you are nuts. You have to ignore the naysayers and do what needs to be done.

Most people do not have the endurance to do this. This endurance requires confidence, drive, love and determination. Moving from good to great requires you to put in the work, but putting in the work does not always mean you will move from good to great. This is why many people choose to quit. If there isn't a reachable goal, they tend to pull up and move to something else. For other people, the putting in the work, the practice, the difficulty are the the goal. They want to be great, but they know they may not get there. They love the hard work and have the hope of getting better and better, but know they will never be perfect. For them, the journey is more important than the destination. This gives them the endurance to continue on, in spite of the difficulty, the criticism, the doubt. Do you have the endurance for the chance at greatness? Or, would you rather play it safe?