I think it’s time to let life surprise and delight us again. We’ve neglected to dance through our days (if we ever did) and instead, we plod along like a mule pulling a plow. We focus more on the things on our lists we need to do instead of seeing it as a forward movement towards what we want for ourselves next, something that desperately needs our enthusiasm to fuel it and allow us the joy of the journey.

“Everyone feels they are on a journey, but if you cannot see reality, you are merely on a cosmic treadmill, trapped in time. A person can spend a lifetime going nowhere”
~ R J Blizzard

I keep circling back to gratitude, to a genuine appreciation of what exists now that still leaves plenty of room for new hopes, desires and dreams. What can you find when you look around you that is beautiful, funny, needed and more than many have?  There are people all over the world taking their last breaths now, right now.

And here we are. What will we do with this gift?

How can we enjoy what we have instead of focusing on lack? How can we add more value to the work we do at this moment to break through to the work we desire? How can we show more compassion and kindness in our everyday dealings with those around us to grow the world a bigger heart?

Nobody wakes up with the goal of living their lives thoughtless, mindless and bored. It’s a lack of awareness, a negligence to ourselves, that makes it so. We wait for life to quit kicking us in the teeth, to give us what we deserve. Isn’t it already doing so?

We keep waiting for a break, a clue, permission, while time steadily passes by.

We spend our time worrying what will happen or what won’t. We worry about money, friends, lovers and what other’s think of us. We’re so locked in on where we should be by now that we again miss the exhilaration of who and where we are in this moment. We forget to take the time to hold one another, belly-laugh together, dry someone’s tears and say “I love you”. We forget to stop judging and start forgiving.

We have amnesia of the soul.

“My life is too often driven by the fear of the next moment verses focusing on the privilege that I have the next moment.”
~ Craig Lounsbrough

I used to have people in my circle who saw life as ugly, something to defend against, something to mock and disdain. They would feed their anger at the world, or rehash past injuries or failings repeatedly and ridicule those who chose to live in the light of their hearts instead of  the shadow of their scars.

I could not calm or uplift them from these personal hells they chose because they fed them daily. Their thoughts powered a self-fulfilling prophesy of a life that was shallow, dark and hopeless. They managed to achieve validation that they were right, and in their lives, they were.

What a cold and joyless victory that must be.

To  my way of thinking, what is shitty and cold in the world is available any time you want a part of it, so is what’s wonderful, hilarious and full of potential. We get to choose. I’m not blind to the bad stuff, I just don’t want to feed it. The uglier things get, the more we need beauty to be added, isn’t that critical? The more tears there are, the more joy is needed. The more destruction there is, the more creation is necessary.

Life isn’t out there somewhere waiting to be found. It’s now, ready to be lived.

“If it was all about the destination, we’d spend our nights sleeping in graves.”
~ Karishma Magvani

We are where and who we are, right now. That’s all we’ve got.

Do with it what you will.