Content With This Moment

Some days I look at life and I wonder how I'm going to make it through another day.  It isn't always easy and before you take pity on me, please realize that my life is doing much better than it once was.  In fact, these past few months have progressed along rapidly towards a better life.  In fact, if I just looked at this one moment in the continuum of life, I would have to say everything is fine.

Yet, deep down, I still struggle with parts of my life that have not unfolded.  Income is coming through, but I've sort of taken another dip in the income flow of my life.  My body is so much more free from pain, but in the last week through all the stress, it has kicked up considerably.  While I can see more of what life has in store for me or what attracts me to life, I still struggle to seem to find my way.  Last but not least, I still struggle with relationships, friendships, and feeling like I fit into this planet and civilization.

Again, I don't want pity.  I despise pity for myself because there are so many that have it much worse than I do.  Yes, I went through hell and back in my life, but I'm functioning and walking and talking and living!  That's more than some people can claim.  So, in many ways I have nothing to complain about, except that I want much more.  I'm driven to much more in my life, not in respect to material possessions, but more understanding, growth and awareness in myself and my role in the world.


One of the lessons that seems to be coming back to me time and time again is to be content where I am at.  The more I think about what I don't have or seem to not have, the more depressed I get.  On the flip side, the more I see that I do have and the more I celebrate this moment I'm living in, the more hopeful I become.   I have to remind myself frequently that I've come a long ways and I've gained so much in life that I don't need only to look at all the rough places I still hold within me.

Learning to be content with what I have in the moment is not easy.  In the most difficult and stressful of times, it is easy to just say, enough is enough.  It is easy to enter the dark side of depression and think that there is no tomorrow.  In fact, there are times that I really have to pull myself back and say, hold on a minute - look at your life and where you have come from.  Once I can do that, I see that things aren't as bad as they seem.

I'm a worrier by habit and probably by birth.  I was taught in my family how to worry and do it well.  I can worry with the best of them!  Yet, worry does not get me anywhere and unfortunately, I keep trying to do it.  It seems easier to worry than it does to connect to all that life has to offer and to all the possibilities.  That seems difficult to me!

Like I said a minute ago, I'm beginning to learn from my core being how to be content with what I have in the moment I am living.  It is being content without thinking about what the next moment will bring or what will happen tomorrow or the next day or the next year.  It is about embracing this one single moment in my life and living it to the fullest.

I know it isn't easy and believe me, I've fought with this my entire life.  However, I know that the little bit I have seen unfold, it isn't because I worried about the next moment, but that I surrendered to this moment.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 1/23/13 by Don Shetterly

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