IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
how to enjoy today now how to enjoy today now
“I guess the key questions to ask are, ‘What do you expect out of life?’ and ‘What will you settle for?’” – Handbook for the Soul
What do you really want out of life?
Many of us are raised in a society that expects us to go to school, get a job, have a family, and work until we can retire. Basically we were given a checklist for how to “do” life correctly and are forced to follow it. But if we try to follow that exact path, we wind up only seeking out the next item on the list. Thus we’re just constantly looking for the next step that will bring us closer to what we should have. It then becomes quite hard to enjoy where we’re actually at because we’re always pursuing what’s next.
Why is it then that we can’t seem to find happiness -or at least what we think it should be? We long for the day when everything has fallen into place. When we can finally relax and say, “I did it, I made it!”. But we need to realize that day will never come. We’ll always be growing and searching for what comes next -that’s what life is! So why can’t we enjoy where we are now?
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It’s fundamentally human of us to be stuck in the past or the future. We are always questioning what we did wrong and worrying about what to do next. So we tend to look at the present moment as a means of how to get to the next step, thus never finding peace or fulfillment in the now. It’s true that we should learn from our past and have hopes and dreams for our future. Yet we shouldn’t keep putting off the things we can do now to bring about that future.
In order to create the life we want for ourselves we need to realize that it’s only up to us. We must be our own champion. We can’t keep waiting for some future day when we’ll finally feel ready to have the life that we want. When we have enough money, the dream job, a loving partner, and the right circumstances. The only things we need in order to be ready is knowing that we are our best self and choosing to create our own happiness. If we don’t believe in or love ourselves now, then when?
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In each moment we can’t be more than who we already are. So when we decide to love ourselves fully, it is now. Having this self-love gives us strength and power because it comes from an inner space where we know and trust ourselves. When this happens we’re finally able to speak our truth -who we are, what we want, and why we want it- without worrying about what anyone else thinks. Guided by an open-mind, we must decide to take back control of our life by using our personal power to share with others what we want out of life.
