No Escape

I used to be a planner. There was not a day that went by when I did not spend serious time thinking about  where I was going to be five years in the future. I wanted to be sure that I was doing everything that I could to be where I wanted to be. After all, if I did not do things exactly right, that future that I had meticulously planned may not turn out exactly as I wanted.

That's a lot of pressure, given that most of us can't even say for sure what our commute is going to be like. Or what we are going to have for lunch.

Some people I know spend a lot of time trying to get to the future. These are people who often say things like "I can't wait till . . ." or "Once I get through this week . . ." The future, to them, is a glittering prize given for time spent well today. I fall into this camp. I'm not quite the planner I once was, but I still tend to look forward to some imagined reward.

There are others who are wanting to retreat. Who talk about how the world has gone to hell, and how we would all be better off if we went back to the way things used to be.

But here we all are, in this present moment. We can't go faster or slower. We can't be anywhere but here, even when we'd rather be somewhere else. And when we accept that, when we accept that we are right here right now, this ordinary moment expands to fill our lives with joy and wonder.

We find that all those things that we wanted in the future really don't matter so much right now. We find that even though there is no escape from it, somehow, in this moment, we have everything we need.

Jeff