Thursday, December 30, 2010

Lesson Learning

May 6, 2009

Do you every want to just kick yourself for not listening to bits of advice. The worst is when they come from yourself; when you have been “in it” and been working through stuff and finally have something of a “ah-ha” moment. Yes, especially these moments recorded with ink and paper. It’s having an “ah-” cut off by the realization that you’ve already had this realization, and there it sits blandly looking up at you.

Radical new epiphany? No, just me moving in a circle--that is, if there’s been any movement at all. Honestly, it’s weird that I often think the me of the past is wiser than the me of the now; but the pressure is relieved when we put all of it on the idolized, golden me of the future. WAKE UP! This is here, you are now. I need to be fully here, where ever here may be at that moment; or perhaps I need to be fully in the moment, each moment.

A recent theme has been “just do it”, not nike athletic themes, but the theme of quit sitting or standing, metaphorically and literally, and DO--move, walk, sprint, run, participate. Today I read a book titled “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”. A particular conversation between two of the characters stood out:
“Do you always think this much, Charlie?”
“Is that bad?” I just wanted someone to tell me the truth.
“Not necessarily. It’s just that sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.”
“Is that bad?”
“Yes.”

I want to participate and I want to be here. Those are two things I realized earlier this year that I needed to do, but then somehow I forgot. I definitely regret not learning these lessons, if you will, and wonder how things could have been if I had. How would I be? Who would I be? But I have decided not to should, would, or could on myself ever (perhaps another lesson would be to more graciously extend this same courtesy to others) therefore I need to stop dwelling and thinking after I have processed and DO: dive in and participate here where I am now. God willing, may this lesson finally begin to permeate and affect me for real.

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