Living in the Moment

Do you remember thinking the world stopped when you weren’t there to experience it? When I was a child, I thought the moment I left—people froze until I met up with them again. There was nothing that occurred outside of my reality—if I didn’t see it, it didn’t happen. I remember, at a fairly young age, when I came to the realization that people didn’t freeze when I wasn’t there to experience them. Needless to say, it was a real hard pill to swallow, when I saw that their life kept on truckin’ along without me.

Fortunately, we are not the same small child that couldn’t comprehend time, or the adolescent that couldn’t wait to grow up. We’ve changed, evolved, expanded our lives, and unfortunately, when the time came, we got sucked right into the race-consciousness of our culture. The world told us there was more to life then kitty cat whiskers and puppy dog tails. Suddenly, we were conditioned to believe that, we can’t have what we want, we will never get it, we can’t afford it, stop dreaming about it, and by all means, don’t be so selfish to ask for it…the list goes on and on. We began to believe that we were separate from life; that thoughts and things were two separate ideas.

But isn’t it interesting that when we were born into this world we were totally reliant upon the giving, caring, and love of others? We couldn’t do anything for ourselves and yet we somehow were able to express our needs. As we grew we learned to ask for what we wanted. We, as children, expected our every need to be met. There was no fear of lack…lack of love, joy, peace, abundance, or contentment. We had no clue that there was a process that must happen in order for us to have the food in our bellies, clothes on our backs, a roof over our heads, and love in our hearts. It just was. We somehow had the consciousness of living in the moment, without even knowing it. There was no idea of doubt, fear, or lack; we only had to be.

Then as adolescents we were taught that the world doesn’t revolve around us. Society conditioned us to stop asking for so much. Society dictated to us that we shouldn’t have such high expectations. Only a few get to experience true success, love, joy, prosperity, and inner peace. The rest of us must spend our lives struggling to figure out how to get it.

Let’s face it; every day we are told to ask for less. We are bombarded with news of lack, fear, doubt, limitations. We let the hook of desperation catch in our mouths and we let the pole of race consciousness just reel us in. We’re pulled out of life, out of our unlimited possibilities, only to be drowned in the bloated nothingness of limited ideas and unfulfilled definitions. Who says we must conform to the world?

“Do not imitate the way of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”* 

It is our birthright to be happy, prosperous, joy-filled, and peaceful. We are designed to experience life, love unconditionally, and serve with gratitude. How amazing would it be if we gave up our old stories of lack, hate, fear, doubt, and jealousy and decided to originate new stories of love, joy, understanding, and peace? Absolutely nothing would restrain the infinite possibilities bursting from our spiritual understanding. You are a gift to this world; the same greatness that resides in the enlightened, awaits you to discover it within youself.

Give up the same ol’ story and create a better one. We are the keepers of our dreams; dare to dust them off, and place them on the shelf of self-discovery. It isn’t the labor of planting the seed that’s hard, it’s not digging it up to see if it’s conspiring to germinate and grow. There is a power in the Universe that knows what to do and how to do it. From an acorn, grows an oak tree, from a tulip bulb, a tulip grows, it doesn’t need our help to realize its potential. We must plant our seeds of genius, and then leave them alone to grow.

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings!

*Romans 12.2

What do you mean, life went on?