Now is Always a New Experience

Moving on from finding your 'Now', you have to experience your 'Now' too. Whether it is a unique and exciting adventure or simply waiting at the airport terminal. You have to be there to own the moment. So many times I just get lost in my thoughts I am not really part of the experience and may just lose out on learning something new. Each and every experience is a potential learning experience. We should be exploring the world with eyes of a child, as if we were experiencing things for the first time. Looking for the new in everything. As often as we do seemingly routine tasks, I can guarantee you that there will be something new and unique you can find in each occasion. If you struggle to find the 'New', then make it. Alter your routine slightly, go a different route, sit in a different place. Doing this will place you in new environments where you can find the 'New'. No matter how small or seemingly insignificant the 'New' is, try it.

This is quite a difficult concept for me to adopt as I am a systematic, routine type of person. I think I would be happier if I was in fact a robot! Change is not easy for me and is always accompanied by a mountain of stress. In the world we live in, change seems to be occurring faster and faster or perhaps our lives just seem to be progressing quicker and quicker. Either way we encounter change at a rapid rate. Being stubborn and trying to resist the flood of change is in fact futile. (Saying that, perhaps I am part robot. Star Trek joke for us nerds.) There is so much to gain by using new methods but you will have to try it to really know for yourself.

So this message is probably directed at myself more than anybody else, to let the 'New' happen and work with it to make it a positive 'New' even if it is seemingly wrong. If the change is inevitable or you have little control over the outcomes, then even more reason to work with 'it' to turn it into something positive. Fighting will only bring more anguish and stress. I do not see this as 'giving in' but rather working to make the most of what you are dealt. If you are not going to do it, it is highly unlikely anybody else will do it for you. So take charge of your 'Now' and make the 'New' an experience you want it to be.  

I've Lost My Now

Of recent, I seem to be so future focussed that I have lost touch with my present and now. I was vaguely aware of it but considered the end goal of such importance that the now could wait. Life seemed to be on hold until the plan becomes a reality. I guess the subtle messages I have been receiving have suddenly brought that awareness into scrutiny and has revealed the acute importance of now. I watched a video that explored how our conscience perceives the precise instance of now and that our mind doesn't really exist in a singular moment of time but continually references a window of time to pre-empt what is about to happen so as to be prepared. So our ability to catch a glass falling off a table is as a result of our mind observing the potential risk, predicting that it could fall, understanding from past experience that if it should fall, in which direction it will travel and the consequence of the event. Our mind has already planned a reaction in case of the event before it has even occurred. This is our mind living in the now and millions of such reactions are planned in preparation of the possible scenarios we may encounter. This is reviewed on a micro-scale but the same is true over longer time frames. So in my case, my focus has been on plans for months in the future with very little attention for the current week or even month. A book I picked up to continue reading spoke about young children's impatience and demanding of everything now. "Now is the natural dwelling place for them. They don't spend much time in the past or in the future. Now is always a brand-new adventure." This perceived impatience is really children's "sign of aliveness."

"Now is the only real time."

"Now is their (the children's) best chance for happiness. Now is where they will find love. now is the time to go for it. When they look into now, they see the totality of possibilities."

We seem to drum that enthusiasm out of our children and teach them the 'art' of patience where perhaps we should be learning some of their spontaneity and relish the moment of now and make the most we could of it.

This week I was also reminded how, without any warning and so very quickly, now can be taken away. However fantastic my plans are for next year, the now is what I actually have to work with and I ask my self, "Am I being the best husband, father, son, brother, friend that I can be right now?" How sad if my eulogy read something like, "He wasn't really great to live with in the last few months he was around, but next year he was going to be awesome."

HAPPINESSISNOWHERE

You decide how you want to read that. Is it three words or four? Find your now and work on making it a happy place. Don't forget your future plans but keep your now fully in focus.

When No-One Is Around

When no-one is around, what do you think about? Are you so busy with tasks that you don't move past the focus of the activities that still need to be completed or do you have a tv-mind with infinite channels that keeps hoping from one to the next to the next, pausing momentarily if something catches your eye and then moving on when you get bored?
I'm the latter and sometimes if I am honest with myself, I don't like the channels I am choosing but sometimes I feel that I just don't have the will to change the channel or better yet switch it off and get my mind to do something more constructive.

Is your mind space something you are proud of?
A place you are comfortable to invite people to truly see your inner workings?
What do you say to yourself about others?
What do you say to yourself about yourself?
What do you say to yourself about your future?

If we are being really honest in answering this, I'm sure I can say that we all go through times where we are really ashamed of our program choices. We of course have to process "issues" somewhere and perhaps it is better to resolve or settle things in your mind before verbalising every thought you have... The problem comes about when you keep continuously keep switching back to that channel until by habit it becomes your default setting. Check what your mind is watching and put some keep that remote controls handing to change to something better for your spirit.

Advice About Washing

snuggery - noun [snuhg-uh-ree]
British: a comfortable or cozy room / a snug place or position.

After the recent frustrations I was ranting on about in my last blog, a long weekend was just what the doctor (probably psychiatrist) ordered. A time for some rest in my snuggery. Unfortunately that had to come to an end and with it, the attack on the replenished 'patience tanks' began in earnest again.
I've just realised that it is in fact an attack and is part of a greater scheme to wear me down to breaking point. Guess what? I'm no push-over! I will survive this season and come through all the stronger for this experience. I had a very encouraging talk with a pastor friend of mine who reminded me of what is really important in this life and where we should be placing our focus.

• Firstly on God who will never give us more than we can handle and will be our strength in these trying times. 
• Secondly, our family who usually get our worn-out left-over efforts which are never pretty!

Time to take the focus off the problems and place priority on those whom matter most.
Do what you are able to, to resolve the problems and then leave them in the past. Don't drag them along with you, they become such a weight to bear and don't provide any value at all! The next time you find yourself putting the same thoughts of a problem through your mind's washing machine, stop and check to see if you are actually moving forward in making a solution or if it is just spinning around without water and washing powder. The problem is going to come out in very much the same state it went in, except you have wasted a heap of energy on it. Either, start making plans for the solution or move on to a different task you can make a real difference with. Perhaps that problem wash needs to soak a bit before the marks come out?