A Tomorrow Worth Waking Up For...

flickr.com

There are times in our experiences when we allow ourselves to get so caught up in the ebb and flow of life that we forget the sounds of our own heartbeat. We forget what's really important to us...the things that give life meaning, that which makes life fulfilling .... - as they say...so busy making a living that we forget to make a life.

I find that this happens most when we spend our todays 'working for a better tomorrow'....so focused on the better life we expect to have in the years to come that we miss the blessings of today. We look with hope to the days when we will earn a better income, live in a bigger house, not realising that the house we expend all our time and resources to acquire  robs us of the home we could very well be building today.

Now, don't get me wrong....aspiring for a better tomorrow is a necessary occupation - one that keeps us appropriately focused on our goals. The trouble is, not many of us have learnt how to be 'happily discontented'; we haven't taught ourselves how to be grateful in our current situation no matter how dismal it all seems.

Learning to find beauty in the common affairs of life- in our imperfect relationships, our once-white picket fences, our worm-infested flower gardens - is a sure fire way of engaging with life in such a way as to guarantee the future success we crave. We must come to see that our aspirations for the future, and living a life of happiness, contentment and fulfillment, in the present, are not mutually exclusive. We can have them both....finding meaning ans drawing fulfillment in our lives today,  as we confidently work towards the goals that make our tomorrows worth waking up for!

What am I BECOMING?

flickr.com

Much has been penned about the important questions we must ask ourselves in life. If you have a tendency toward introversion and introspection, like I do, I am sure you would have asked yourself millions of 'important' questions by now....questions, the answers to which sometimes leave you feeling inadequate, under-accomplished or lacking in some other way...questions such as 'what is my life's purpose?' or 'what has been my contribution to the planet?' Deep searching questions that cause us to feel far from equal to the tasks we set ourselves.

Undoubtedly, these musings arise from our own ambitions and ideals, and if we aren't careful, can possibly lead to discouragement. However, I have come to realize that in the same way that audacious goals are realized one conscious decision at a time, deep and piercing questions can be answered one small lesson at a time, one minuscule, intentional action at a time.

But at the end of the day, the important measures of assessment aren't the answers to the deep philosophical questions of purpose or those of apparently less import - those questions of "What am I earning, what am I achieving, what have I accomplished, or what did I get?" The most important question, I have found, is one that is answered with each daily decision. It is simply 'what am I becoming?' How are my current associates and relationships influencing who I am becoming? What is my career making of me?  How are my current pursuits changing me? When I lay in bed at night and reflect on the day that slipped by, do I like the person I see reflected in my thoughts?  Am I  at peace with who I become day by day?

Many things influence and impact our lives everyday. Some we are able to control, others we aren't. Fortunately, our 'becoming' is one of those things over which we have total control. The words of  holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, ring true: "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." That, my friends, is the essence of BECOMING - the opportunity and right to choose to be better than we were before, in spite of our circumstances....still, for me, the noblest of our human obligations!