Live in the now, man.

2015 begins with shouts of “This year it will be different!” “This year I will lose weight!” “This year I will be a better person!” and I sit at my table shaking my head in disbelief. You already have the tools to skip to the good parts. You can already make every change. Right now. Today. Reading this. It’s a matter of putting yourself into uncharted personal territory.

One of my favorite pieces of advice given in a common language is, “Live right now.” It doesn’t take a year to figure out that you’re still going to a job you hate that pays a tolerable salary. It certainly doesn’t change anything when you buy a size larger than you thought you should because that weight has miraculously grown on your buttocks. It doesn’t bode well that you already believe yourself to be a bad person. Shake the dust off your boots and look to the horizon of possibilities that are just outside of the comforting circle you’ve established. This moment is your chance of a lifetime.

Imagine yourself resting in the middle of a circle that is made up like a protective wagon train hunkered down for the night on the Oregon Trail. As you sleep in the comfort of this circle near the campfire that keeps the darkness at bay, you’re surrounded by the security of friends, family, income, a home, food, reliable transportation, hobbies, and the knowledge that you know exactly (more-or-less) what will happen in the morning because every day starts out the same,  progresses the same (twists and turns happen but usually nothing major), and the day will end roughly the same. We feel in control and safe. It becomes, to some, a prison of mundane predictability with no opportunity for progress. The horses are staked, the homestead built, and yet many have not traveled more than twenty miles from their origins.

Outside of that circle of wagons is a vast prairie. The golden grasses of adventure wave with friendly light at the rise of a new breath, a new dawning. Away from that blazing campfire is the cold face of unfamiliar people, confusing ideas, opportunities to explore growth, languages we don’t understand, beliefs that have never been mentioned within our safety circle. There is nothing written in stone even on the distant mountain peaks. But there is much knowledge, many ideas, creative blossoms of ingenuity to be picked from the stems of the wildflowers, the winds of change tickling the skin of those who put up the sail on their wagon to find their own home.

The opportunities to change don’t come once a year. They are always available to you. It’s not weakness to have to keep trying again, it’s weakness to reject an idea without sincere effort. It isn’t easy to unhitch your wagon and move out into the darkened prairie where things get larger than life that seethe with intimidation. It’s instant change. But, just as the original circle brought comfort and safety, so does the place outside the circle if you can learn to trust yourself. If you learn and remember that you really do have the answers even if the outcome isn’t exactly as you’d expected.

You can choose to be anyone you wish to become simply by willing the change. Obviously, this isn’t going to work for every condition. It can’t raise the dead or take back something done/that happened/circumstances, but it can change the attitude with which we are using to deal with the emotional upheavals.

Take the chance by saying “Yes!” to Opportunity:

There are many things that I know how to do because I’ve tried a lot of different things. I can draw, write, paint, organize, create, visualize, produce, etc. But this comes from seeking new opportunities as often as possible. If I don’t change what I’m doing every day while expecting things to change, that’s just insanity according to the quote attributed to Albert Einstein.

Take the chance to say “No!”:

I see many unhappy people saying yes to things they don’t really want to do. They say yes out of some twisted sense of obligation. It can cause them to blow off the people who were depending on them, not completing the tasks they said they’d do, as well as driving away potential for further opportunities. Understand that if you don’t place and maintain your boundaries, you’re not going to find that happiness because resentment will build as fast as that half-hearted yes came out of your mouth. It’s okay to say no if you don’t want to, are already stretched too thin, or hate the idea of yet another meeting.

Take the chance but know that you’re not Atlas:

We are, as a whole, superhero wanna-be’s. We’re told we can have it all. The problem with that is, we’re not Atlas. We can’t balance the weight of the world, or rather our own personal worlds, on our shoulders as well as taking on everyone else’s. If you’re already juggling three balls and someone asks you to take a fourth you have the option to say, “No thanks, I have enough going on in my juggling as it is.” OR you can say, “You know, I think I will try it.” You really have a 50/50 chance of success which increases depending on your experience, knowledge, skill set, and time.

Say Yes to things about which you feel deep passion:

When I joined a church nearly a year ago, I was given the wisdom from one of the elders, “There will be many great things offered for you to do. Only choose those which speak the strongest to your heart and say yes to those. There are enough people to say yes to the rest that you don’t have to say yes to everything.” I realize this contradicts my previous statement about saying yes to opportunity, but it isn’t an opportunity if your heart isn’t willing and open to try it. You have to figure out what truly moves you to action.

Each breath you take is a new opportunity to make better choices. You have that opportunity every moment of every waking day. Be a member of the breathing life, not the stagnant life. No amount of good intentions will ever allow you to move forward if you don’t actively work towards being happy.

As far as the right now, I am not going to make any resolutions unless I can achieve them right now. I think of it as a bit of pocket change. If I can embrace it right this moment, what does tomorrow give me that right now doesn’t? Not a thing. Tomorrow isn’t promised, only this moment as you read this is and does. It’s all we have. Why worry about what we can’t change or dream about what we will do? Right now is the chance of a lifetime.

“Just Do It” –Tagline from Nike ads

“Follow your bliss and the Universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”–Joseph Campbell, Author of The Power of Myth

“Live in the now, man.”–Garth Algar, Wayne’s World (Dana Carvey)