I've spent way too much time wishing away my life. You do it too. We're wishing away our lives when we say, "Once I lose weight I'm going to..." or "When the kids are older I'll be able to..."
When our biological son was born I remember thinking of how it would be when he was old enough to walk. I imagined basketball games, I imagined how I would feel when I lost the baby weight.
There's nothing wrong with dreaming or having goals, but we shouldn't let our dreams and goals take us out of the moment that we're living. Looking back, I regret the time I lost wishing my life away, anticipating what WOULD BE instead of appreciating WHAT IS.
We have a lot of pictures of baby Nicholas sitting in one of those plastic carrier seats. Every time I see a picture like that I want to reach right into the photograph and pick him up. I want to hold him tight and smell the fresh baby scent of him. I want to tap that younger me on the shoulder and tell her that the years will go by so quickly and once they're gone they're GONE forever. I want to remind her to live in the moment she's in.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed baby Nicholas but I wish I'd enjoyed him MORE. I wish I'd taken more time to laugh, to surrender to the messes he made, to wonder at the strong will driving his more than occasional defiance. I wish I hadn't been so quick to wipe his finger prints off the windows.
But as soon as I speak of my regrets, I realize how easy it is to lose oneself looking back at what was, thinking of what might have been. It's just another way we lose the moment that we're in. Don't get me wrong, Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." I believe that. Reflection is good. But we don't want to get stuck there. I think one of the biggest challenges of life is learning to live in the moment. All too often we only recognize our happiness in retrospect because we're so busy reaching forward to what comes next.
Whether your goal is to quit smoking or to lose weight or to get past pregnancy to motherhood or past the waiting to adoption, I hope that you'll take a moment to breathe out and breathe in and do it again and just feel the moment that you're in.
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Is there something that you're waiting for? Some hope for the future that keeps you from living well RIGHT NOW? Is there something in the past that keeps pulling you back, so that you miss today?
©Just Kate, 2009
God in the Grass
1 hour ago
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I fear reaching for the things I want so I tend to dream about them. *wry smile* It's a safe way to be but it's not very productive!
I sometimes find myself dwelling on that part of my life. It is a huge regret. BUT I can't allow it to shape my happiness today.
We were so busy with our adopted children that we never really thought about having another birth child until recently. There were health obstacles, but... Well, I regret not having TRIED harder. At this point it's absolutely out of the question for health reasons.
In the end, we made the choices that we made and it pays well to learn from them but then we have to keep our eyes not forward but on the NOW because *NOW* is where we live. :)
)
When Socrates made that statement about the unexamined life, I've always interpreted in a way that didn't necessarily mean "reflect on the past" so much as "just reflect, instead of react". In my (almighty and powerful and not a damned big humble) opinion, there are way too many of us who go around jerking our knees at the opinions of others, blindly operating according to the trendy programming of the day (be it "the way I was raised" to "this is what my pastor has to say about that" to "this is what CNN has to say about that, and since they said it, it must be true, and so this is not just my opinion by THEIRS and by God you'd better believe it too or you're a heathen or an imbecile or both".
Socrates would have rolled his eyes in despair, instantly able to see someone who has not examined his life at all. Such an unexamined life has no independant value apart from what every other Tom Dick and Harry has to say. Such unexamined lives are in fact merely exclamation points, virtual megaphones of the latest fad......
The examined life however knows how he or she feels about something, and understands what is important to him or her, and more importantly (why* it's important. The examined life consequently is less than predictable, often appearing strange and dangerous - precisely because that examined life refuses the Stepford principles, preferring instead to gasp in anticipation at what might be around the next corner.
AT least, that's my take on it. :)
I have never been a fan of the conventional or thoughtless acceptance of what one has been told. I would need to look at the context in order to speak intelligently about his intent, but I don't think I need to do that. Socrates was a fan of independent thought and self examination. I think those two things go together. I wouldn't confuse it with incessant rumination on the past, as modern society seems to want to encourage us to do, because it's not productive and takes us out of life and encourages us to blame or guilt.
Now I could easily go off on the tangent of guilt (oh great sparker of tangential thought!) which is not productive beyond the point where it motivates us to enact productive change.
Anyway, your comment brings me back to a favorite quote. In his autobiography Mark Twain said, "In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."
And...I really miss this, Katy! So glad you're posting here - where we're far away from the drama and goings on of Myspace. :)
Cheers!
Anyway, I'm likewise happy to be free from the drama of blogging on myspace but I've missed your mind, Wolfshades. :)
Thanks for being here.
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