Tuesday, April 14, 2015

MUSINGS OF THE DAY - April 14, 2015

"The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."

- Jack London - 

This quote stood out to me today, because I used to exist instead of live. I was always vying for more time, and really more of everything, but I was never truly happy with any of it. My thinking was of the kind that if I just had this or that then I would finally arrive and I would feel better, which then meant I'd do better too.

Thank goodness my beliefs or my way of looking at the world with me in it has changed. I have today. Nothing more. And even then I don't know if I will get the whole day or only a portion of it. 

This morning, as my husband and I were driving our boys to school, I felt this weight, not a heavy weight mind you more like a light blanket of weight, but this weight kept twisting my thoughts to not wanting to do anything, not write, not take a shower, not go outside, not participate in life. 

I knew to stay with my moment, where my hands were, instead of where this weight wanted me to go. I knew I didn't need to decide the day or all the things I was going to do. For the time being, all I needed to do was sit in the car and take my children to school. 

Once home, this weight still presided over me, using all its power (if we want to call it that) to bend me to its will, which was to hide and escape from life. I could have been bent and jumped into the suffering the weight wanted me to wallow in (whatever that unknown suffering would have been, I don't know), but I know today I have a choice. 

I can choose to bend with the weight and succumb to the hiding and the escaping. Or I can not bend and choose to do one thing, and then after doing that one thing I can choose do another, and so on.

This all leads me back to where I am now, writing. "I shall not waste my days . . ."


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