Instead of waiting

We’ve all heard so many affirmations like everything will be okay. It’ll all get better eventually. The light at the end of the tunnel. Just hang in there.

All of these reassurances are based off of the present reality not being what you want it to be. The assumption that you are not satisfied with what is happening in your life right now. That you have to go through some kind of suffering, a debt, to achieve that something you want.

On the surface, this may be true. Nothing ever truly worth it comes easy. You are never given a one-way ticket to success. And sometimes facing that reality is what a lot of people struggle with when achieving their goals. And the light at the end of the tunnel is supposed to be some kind of motivation, knowing that things will get better once we get passed this suffering. As if every struggle in itself will dissipate once you’ve attained that one thing you are working towards.

But personally I feel like that puts so much burden on every day life. So you’re supposed to pay this debt and go through ‘hard days’. Sure, if you were a natural optimist, this may be a driving force and you may be able to live every day life just fine. But for people like me, this kind of language puts a negative aura around what I’m doing everyday. And that consumes me until I can’t see that light at the end of the tunnel.

I often wonder when am I EVER going to get to that point? And with long term goals such thoughts can be daunting and really put a halt to that momentum you originally had.

So instead, I return to the present. Although many times I do forget, I try to feel the reality that is the now. Knowing that now is enough, and what I have is more than I could ever have dreamed of. This gives me a certain kind of peace and freedom. Most times returning to this BASIC state is very difficult. It requires me to truly just feel what I’m doing at a very elementary state. But when I get there it’s like all the things I worried about were mere fabrications.

I feel like working from this elementary point is far more authentic and motivating than wishful thinking for what might be ahead. Doing whatever it is I can do now with passion and ease, trusting the course that this effort might take me.