This moment is a teacher

This moment is a teacher

I’ve been very unsettled this week and this month.  Partly due to the cabin fever and seasonal blues of our cold New England winter.  But, also because of my brain’s incessant need to plan this time of year.

My brain can’t be satisfied to sit by the fire sipping cocoa. My brain has to fix everything.  My brain has to figure out a straight path through the future that ends in some ill-defined nirvana.  My brain forgets to live in the moment.  My brain forgets that there are no straight paths.

One of my brain’s great strengths is the ability to think ‘strategically’.  To tease patterns out of the chaos and use those patterns to see around corners and into the future.  I am a pathfinder.  My mind becomes lost when the path is unclear or when the actual path diverges from the imagined path.

Why?  Why does my mind become unsettled when the path is dark?  What is it about this moment that is different and unsettling?

Just the process of projecting futures from the present is a foolish thing to do.  Humans are great at building castles in the sand and then becoming shocked with disbelief when those castles are washed into the sea by the inevitable tide.

And I know this.  But still the future becomes unsettling when the path is not robust.

The thing we lose sight of is that the future is always unclear.  The path is never known.  This is our starting point.  Once you wrap your head around the inevitable chaos and the fact that the sea comes for all sand castles on the shore, then you are free to build as many beautiful castles as you like.

You manage the uncertainty of the future by understanding, embracing and living in the now.  Right now is a moment that is trying to teach you something.  Right now is a moment that you have firmly in your hands yet you choose to gaze wistfully into a murky future.

Meditate on what this moment is trying to teach you.  Why do you feel this discomfort about the future?  Why does it matter so much to you?  What is your game here?

When we feel unsettled about the future it has nothing to do with the future.  It has to do with you and now.

In the current moment you will find yourself.