Creating Our Moments

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Some days I wonder about my life and where it is heading. While I can see specific steps in my path, it seems like there is just so much that I haven’t discovered and as if I’m at the beginning of the journey. In some ways that is most likely true and in other ways it feels as if I’ve been walking for many life times. Almost as if this isn’t the first time through this journey.

But as I know, all things that I encounter and all the experience I have had up to this point in my life, have made me what I am today. It is the sum of all the parts of myself with the good, the bad and the pieces I would greatly like to discard. Without any of these parts, I would not be who I am today nor where I am at. Each part played a role in getting me to this one moment in time that I am at today. And so, while I revel in the great moments of my life and the great experiences I have had, it is those dreaded parts that have been just as momentous for me.

The other day I was thinking that I just really had not done enough for others around me. I felt as if I didn’t really have anything to offer those around me in my community or the world for that fact. I felt inadequate with just not having enough. A mindset of lack, not of abundance even though I know I’ve been so blessed in so many ways.

Than it struck a chord with me, just as if I put my fingers on the keyboard. I was not lacking and inadequate and failing others. In fact, the past year, I’ve helped some people out selling a estate record collection for them. Even though I knew very little about this, my job was to do the physical work to get it sold. Others around me knew the ins and outs of doing this and so their help and assistance made it all possible.

More importantly though is that the people I was selling this for and myself included were in dire straits and needed the extra income. The extra income both ways helped each party make it through a year that would have been even harder to get through. The timing of how these things came together was not of this world because it all happened at the right moment and with the right set of circumstances.

So as I thought about all of this, I realized that I was doing more than I gave myself credit for. That’s not unusual for me to do this and it is one of those things in my life, I’d love to give up. It is my beloved and hated twin – that of not giving myself credit. If I would have not done my part in this entire scenario, than not only would I have suffered but so would others involved with it. They would have been deprived of something that greatly helped them through a very difficult year.

Maybe sometimes we don’t need to put helping others and being there for others in a non profit organizational sort of way. Maybe these things come in all shapes and sizes and allow ourselves to be enhanced in life while we help others. After all it doesn’t have to be one or the other. It could be both!
Putting this in perspective, I can now look back at the previous year and see things that weren’t obvious to me each day. I can now look back and know that I did add to the overall good of others, the community and our world while I also helped myself along. I can now look back and realize that my skills and time used to do this were exactly what was needed. Nothing more! Nothing less! Those skills don’t say lack either. They are abundance because they gave so much to so many.

Sometimes we want to fit life into our own little molds and through our filtered eyes view it as a picture film already created. We fail to see that our life has not been designed but is created with each passing moment. It is in the individual moments where life is lived to the fullest, not in the unrealistic expectations that we may place upon ourselves.
And we can always know that if what we created today is not what we wanted it to be, that we can always create something different tomorrow. Tomorrow will always be a clean slate for us. The important part is to create and live in the moment we have right now.