Live in the now

"I take it not only a day at a time, but a moment at a time.  If you can be happy right now, then you’ll always be happy, because it’s always in the now."

Willie Nelson

I am hoping this is one of those lessons that you hear and you simply nod and say "of course, dad!" 

The idea is pretty simple -- be mindful and try to live in the now. Learn to appreciate what you currently have. Stop worrying about the past and future and focus on what is right in front of you.  

The two issues?

1. This sounds like it was ripped directly out of a hippy book that had rainbows and butterflies on the next page.

2. Being present is easier said than done.

To be honest, I don't know what I would find if I researched the positive effects of "being present."  I have no idea if it can be substantiated at all.  I can't tell you for sure that "being mindful" is going to make you happy.

I have done my fair share of reading self-help books that focus on happiness.  For all intensive purposes, I was studying it.  Heck, I even attempted to optimize my happiness. What I decided was that while there are many things in life that are not a choice, happiness is.  And more importantly, longstanding happiness (as opposed to instant-gratification), is based on my ability to be satisfied with who I am, where I am, and what I have in the current moment.  

Saying this is one thing, but it took a lot of reflection and a few struggles to actually believe this.  The tipping point for me was understanding what "everything" meant to me in the context of having and possibly losing "everything."

At first, "everything" signified the collective work, fortune and item I had done/owned. I tried to push this perspective to think "what if every material piece that I had acquired, bought or created were gone?"  To me, the idea of this was scary, but even scarier was what that meant for my future.  Because I, of course, was collection those items so that I would be prepared for the future!

I grew up thinking, and for good reason, that at some point you can't continue "yoloing" around. I grew up thinking that I needed to be responsible and plan for my future.

I think this is a tricky message, because of course I needed to plan for my future. But, that need to plan for my "happy future" left me in a state of waiting for the "happy" that I was planning.  I found that there was always something that I wanted to do better, another item I wanted to buy that would make me happy in my future.  And that thought process turned into a "grass is always greener on the other side" mentality. And that is a damaging mentality.  Why? Because it made my present not good enough. The line of thinking assumed that if this action or item would make me happy in the future, then I must not be happy in the moment.

And that's when I started reflecting and decided there was no reason I can't be happy with exactly what I have.  I didn't have to change anything besides my mindset.  I had to choose to be happy.

Now let me be clear, it is healthy to have goals and aspirations. It is natural to have regrets and remorse for things past. My point isn't to give those up.  Hell, I would be impressed if you even could.  My point is to say that this "being present" thing is achievable for anyone, but it is also extremely difficult for everyone.

There is a reason why "being present" feels like something only the Dalai Lama can achieve.  Many people say they want to "be present" but why do so many people struggle to do it? Choosing to be happy is the easy part, what is hard is to be content in the moment, especially when your current moment is the least demanding of your attention.

For every subtle "be present" reminder that life sends your way, it sends a knock-you-on-your-butt, in-your-face, seemingly impossible to resist gravitational pull that drags you back to your thoughts and actions that focus on the past and future.  

My advise to you is to recognize what your subtle reminders are and take the time when they happen. For me, it is seeing a beautiful sunset. I know it's corny, but sunsets absolutely amaze me.  Very few other things put me in a sense of awe and because of this, sunsets have the ability to remind me to pause for a moment.  And I'll admit many times, even in the face of these reminders, I still can't pull away. It will be a struggle, but most of the best things in life are.

Find your sunset (or make your own!). Purposely take the time to be present because the only person that will ever make that time is you.  Choose happiness.

You can be wrong

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Aristotle

One of the most important lessons that I could ever share with you is the need to have an open mind. While I hope all of the lessons in this blog are helpful to you in one way or another, I will always respect your right to disagree with each and every one, with the exception of this one lesson.

Being open minded not only opens yourself to the endless opportunities that this world has to offer, but it also makes your views of the world deny hatred and discrimination.  I will save the latter half of that argument for another time, but right now I want to focus on the mindset of being open minded and what it does.

Your mindset serves as the lens that you see the world and is more powerful than you could ever believe.  As I discussed in this post, just believing can change your life completely, knocking down barriers that you never thought you could and achieving more than you ever thought possible.  The greatest thing I could ever wish for you is to have a strong and benevolent mindset.  To have a strong mindset, there is a balance between being firm on your values and adaptable to the changing world with adaptability being the most important piece in that puzzle.  As you continue to read these posts, I hope that you do not take them as fact, but rather as an opinion from someone who is trying to look out for you.  I could be wrong about everything I tell you, but my goal isn't to create your thoughts, but rather just provide you with ways to shape your own opinions.

A simple way that I have used to shape my views on everything in life is to know that I might be wrong -- I might be wrong about everything I believe. It is a scary realization to come to, but an important one. Start thinking about all of your opinions and beliefs and ask yourself how you came to each of them. Each was formed not from a simple experience, but by piecing together various experiences to form your current thoughts.  To assume that you know everything right now is ignorant and in the same regard, assuming everything you know is more than another person is equally as ignorant.  Never assume you are right.  This means more than giving another person a chance to speak, it means listening when they do, really listening and then deciding if you agree or disagree.

One thing that I am looking forward with this blog is the day posts start conflicting with earlier posts. The reason is that while there are things that I feel strongly about today, I hope I don't feel the same way about all of them throughout my life, because otherwise that would mean that I have learned nothing of worth since the time that I made my opinions. Stop and think about that. In order for you to grow, so must your thoughts and beliefs. I am not saying that you must constantly change your views or that growth requires you to change your mind, but it does require new experiences and additional context, and in order to grow your thoughts, you must have an open mind.

As you continue to build an open mindset, one danger I will warn you about is the perception that you are not confident in your opinions. Naturally, if you assume that you might be wrong, you are assuming that you might not be correct and in doing so it could change the way you frame your statements. Two topics that I plan to write about in the future is the idea of confidence vs. arrogance and the idea of perception vs. reality. Without getting into either in too much depth, be aware of how a mindset that is open to alternative views leaves something to be desired when people are looking for definitive statements. Just like many things in life, being self-aware can allow you to do wonders in believing what you want to believe and presenting yourself in the way you want to be appear.

Life is difficult

"Life is difficult and complicated and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes."

J. K. Rowling

Life is difficult.  Why is this so important to learn?  Because while I truly believe that anything is possible and we can do and be anything we want in life, rarely is it easy to make our dreams come true.  Rarely are the things that we want most in life easy – and they shouldn't be.  The reason that some of our greatest accomplishments are our greatest accomplishments isn’t always because of what we actually accomplished, but knowing the blood, sweat and tears that it took to achieve.  My greatest accomplishments are simply the exclamation point at the end of a sentence, rarely the sentence itself.

Why is life so difficult? Because life provides you with a plethora of excuses.   Excuses that can provide you with an “okay” life with little to no work needed to accomplish. The problem is that sometimes that isn’t enough – sometimes we want extraordinary. But to accomplish the extraordinary, we might fight, we must grind, and we must stay persistent - and it is taxing.

About 3 years ago, I decided that I could become fit, but I decided the only way I could do it is by taking certain life style changes to make that happen.  What I realized is that some people are blessed with the ability to stay skinny on a normal basis, and for most of my life I secretly hated those people.  “That person can eat whatever they want, never go to the gym, and they look great? Life is so unfair.” Well you know what I realized? That was an excuse.  I used my genes, my body type, my eating habits, my knee, my asthma, anything to tell myself that I should settle for knowing that there were reasons why I was the way I was, and that there were too many things holding me back from ever accomplishing what I wanted.

You know what I said to that? “Fuck that. I am going to make this happen, and I am not going to let any excuse get in my way.” I decided that life can go ahead and be difficult and I am going to accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish anyway.  If it required me to put in ten times the effort than other people, then I will face that head on.

I started going to the gym consistently; I started eating healthy; I started running and I did not let anything become an excuse.   I threw away free desserts on a daily basis (thanks advertising industry), I walked to the gym in the rain and in negative degree weather, I asked for salads at steak houses, and I changed my life.  And you know what? I don't regret one second of it, and I am happy I made those decisions.  Because while some might think it is extreme, it is actually only what it took for me to get in shape.  Life is tough, and maybe I have to give things up and put in more effort than others do in order to accomplish the same thing, but you know what? I still accomplish it.

And I did exactly that.  I lost over 50 pounds, I felt better than I had ever felt in my entire life and I accomplished more than I ever thought I could.

And then what happened? While playing basketball later that year, I busted my knee, legitimately.  And what did I do? I let that become an excuse.  And once I accepted one excuse, I started accepting more.  And one year later, I am back to where I was before I even started my lifestyle change.  And yes my knee is terrible, but I could have road a bike, I could have used an elliptical, I could have done one of hundreds of things to stay in shape.  But I didn’t because “I love running, and if I can’t run, then there is no way I can keep myself in shape.”  And yes, I would love to run again, but seriously, I let that be my excuse for not working out at all?  Well I promise that that is no longer going to be the case.   I promise that I will get back to where I want to be – and hopefully remember this experience so I don’t have to experience it again.  And truthfully, it will likely require you to go through something similar to completely understand this, but I hope that when that day comes, this validates those feelings, and unlike your old man, I hope you don't have to learn it twice.

This is just one example of life being difficult, but only one of many.  There are so many things that I have struggled with in my life.  The thing is, when I embrace that struggle, when I embrace the obstacles that are in front of me, it not only makes it that much sweeter when I accomplish what I want, but more often than not, embracing those obstacles is why I accomplished what I did.

Yes life is difficult, yes life is unfair, but you have a choice: you can strive to be as happy as you possibly can, or you can settle for less.  You can give in to excuses and become someone that you don't want to be or you can decide that it is time to put your life in your own hands.  There is always going to be someone smarter, faster, stronger, and better experienced than you in different areas of your life, but how does that effect your ability to become better at anything and everything? It doesn't. The only person stopping you from the amazing is you.