Will things ever even out, or are we trapped in perpetual imbalance? We all need a way to “unwind”, and when our only hope of such is some time in the future… well, here is the thing – the future never comes. Please don’t rely on promises things will magically get better some time down the road. Make them better right now, because right now is the only place we humans ever live.
When we can’t find time for joy life becomes a convoluted mess.
We’re told a continuous string of lies about the way things are and the way things will become. And the lies that head the list are, “Accept your lot in life“, and “Things will get better.” Things will not get better unless we make them get better, and the only way to make them better is to refuse to accept our “lot in life”. There is only one time in which we can ever act, and that time is NOW. Now. Not some time down the road, not some time which will never come, not some distant future which never gets any closer. This very instant is where we live, not somewhere in a future that never comes.
It has taken me more than half a century, but I am finally learning to find joy in that which I have. Joy in the heart is worth so much more than a promise of future joy which may never be fulfilled. And what a wonderful joy it is to find. Perhaps even moreso once we realize it is has always been there and it is we who never bothered to look down at the instant in which we are. Why? Because we’ve been taught to focus on future instants which may someday come. Someday never comes, but now? Now is right here. Now is where we humans live.
Live well, live now.
{P.S. If you’re interested in finding moments of joy captured within a larger tale, please try my rather unusual book, Beltamar’s War.}
I agree entirely I am in my early fifties and only recently learned to love myself.
Being in the now is a wonder in its self. I was out this morning foraging for sloes and blackberries. Surrounded in birds and their song it was pure joy.
Thank you Julie. There are so many places in which we can find joy, right within the moment we are in. One of the ways I manage to focus on the moment is by photographing flowers, up close and personal. There are a few of these images on my blog, one of which is at the bottom of a couple of poems. That post is called “Wildflower Blue“, the image is of a flower less than a centimeter across. I think for me the act of framing beauty in an image that will last as long as my phone does is what allows me to focus on that moment of joy.