I wonder how many of our thoughts stretch far outside the moment we are in. Like busy bees, arranging, working, planning, and never resting, our minds have no pause button, allowing us to simply enjoy our own existence in peace and dignity. When we enter kindergarten, teachers prepare us eagerly for the world of first grade, where building blocks will be taken away and pencils and paper replace them. First grade prepares us for second, where we will be trained to “behave like middle schoolers,” an ominous place where silly laughter and “lolly-gagging” won’t be tolerated. Middle school points its awkward finger in our face, commanding us to stand stiller and get our words out before high school comes and it’s too late! High school places a heaping pile of to-do’s in our lap to arrange for our best college potential. It seems that the very essence of life that lies in front of us is removed so that we can prepare for imaginary essence down the road. If we are always storing away food for winter, but never eating, we will die before winter even knocks on our door. When is the time to play with the building blocks, laugh in our unbecoming lanky legs and cracking voices, bearing them with grace, or to lie in the grass and feel the sun on our face as time ticks away?
Time is only frightening when we believe we are not enough, and we must check off our boxes before the alarm sounds and our chances are up. If we believe that our lives are already precious, glorious embers, miracles deserving of awe, respect, and love, then we will see each new day we are given and accomplishment we gain as a gift of joy, not a requirement fulfilled. Our existence would be meaningful even if every day for the rest of our lives was spent watching the clouds go by, filled with gratefulness and peace. Perhaps we might need sustenance to remain, and perhaps we will want to share our gratefulness with others in a fashion we call “love;” these things will make life so much more fruitful, but we do not gain necessity on this earth by doing them. Most times, we actually miss the beauty of our own existence altogether by striving to deserve it. What we have before us is all that is currently real, the past is memory and the future is a dream. We prepare for the unknown best by being present enough to grow in each moment we are given.
I hope that I will always the see the face of the person before me as the only face on earth that matters, a being that has a story, a complex and unique mind, one whose thoughts deserve listening and whose burdens deserve to be shared. The back of my mind may grow legs and wander toward the future, dreaming of the dishes that must be done and the food I must buy for next week’s dinners, but there is no guarantee that next week will come, and that I’ll need dishes to eat on. I am promised that the person I share in that moment with is as real as can be, so why would I not ignore the possibilities of days to come for the sake of appreciating what already is?
I hear many older men and women as they reflect on their lives sighing and wondering where their passions, their simple pleasures, their adoration of life, and their love for others ran off to. They treat their past like a prodigal son who tiptoed off with their pot of joy, squandering it and hiding it without permission, when truly, the pot sat in their laps all along and they never looked down to notice it. Love, joy, gladness, and gratefulness will not run from us, they simply become quiet when we stop looking for them. We choose the path we walk down. We decide the person we want to become.
Will we value daring, authentic love that is present in each moment, opening its arms to confusion and pain, knowing it’s all worth it? Will we silence the noise of our busy minds for a moment to welcome what already is? Will we pursue compassion, peace, and thankfulness relentlessly even when everything tells us to be deeply afraid and pity ourselves in a “safe” place of solitude?
If we do not continue to choose love over withholding, peace over anxiety, and presence over a distant mind, in small ways each and every moment, then we will look back on the compilation of all of our moments, wondering how the years passed right under our noses while we were too busy to notice their lack of joy.