Living in the Moment. The concept itself doesn’t add up. How can you live in the moment? What about retirement savings? Fixed incomes? Declining health? It’s preposterous to think you can live one day at a time never mind one moment at a time. Well, having a radical auto-immune disease taught me a few things.
First off, there’s a mystery of the universe we will never understand no matter how much science, technology or planning we throw at it. Things work out or don’t, whether they make sense or not. And I believe this is one.
Mother Theresa said not all of us can do great things but we can all do small things with great love. So never knowing what tomorrow will bring, I latched on to that one.
Yes, we are to plan ahead and sketch out a plan but we aren’t to set the results in granite. I tried that and it didn’t work. But when I completely surrendered all, I found something much better, much more sustaining.
Take Covid. I almost feel guilty for being happy, especially as many struggle so severly. Where’s my empathy? How can I be joyful at a time like this?
Here’s my secret.
I work hard at staying in the moment. I can’t do anything big about the world events. As long as I’m doing my part with the best I have in me, I can feel good about that. There’s not one good point in worrying. Remember Mother Teresa? Small things, big love.
When Covid came, like everyone else, our local TV station had to rejig things. Our weatherman and sports caster took their show to the road so they could properly social distance. It helped it was early spring and we live in a beautiful spot for fabulous backdrops.
They sourced out local inspiring stories of what people were doing to help each other. That morphed into asking business owners for location spots in exchange for a short interview highlighting their goods or services. Their impromptu humor evolved as their funny bones knit together. They spontaneously played off one another in knucklehead ways. And they not only provided an invaluable service to many struggling businesses but made us laugh in doing so.
Mother Theresa also said ‘Live simply so others can simply live.’ Covid has illustrated that principle in living color in the first half hour of the news and we have to be blatantly stubborn to ignore it. But I have faith that mankind will not. Therefore, Covid fills me with hope. I get excited that our world is finally understanding the joy it took a degenerative disease to slow me down to see. Living simply goes hand in glove with living in the moment.
That’s why I like The Upside so much. One of the reasons it so popular is because they are completely in the moment. And brings us there with them. I don’t think I’ve ever turned off the 6 o’clock news without feeling good. And that’s pretty rare these days.
No, it doesn’t change my fixed income or declining health, but it changes me. I feel energized to throw my best into however small the task is at hand.
Yes, the worrisome things will still be there. But I feel so much better about them because I’m coming to them from a completely different mindset.
Living in the moment. It’s the only way to fly.
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