The Magic is in Choosing NOW (PT 1)

For many, many years, I spent my life grinding HARD.

Eyes-on-the-prize, unfaltering focus, get the fuck out of my way, nothing else matters until I get to this THING I’m working for.

The thing about me is that I LOVE to work. I am my work and my work is me. I LOVE working for myself, having freedom and control over my own time as well as showing up for my humans every single day and creating and sharing what’s on my mind and heart. That is my life. 

However, this revelation is only still relatively new. Because prior to this understanding – the one involving committing myself to showing up and doing the damn thing every single day and most importantly, being PRESENT in all that I do – I was living my life in a way that is a big, BIG no-no. 

I was putting my happiness aside for a later date. For a different time. I was giving myself permission to fully relax, be present and be happy ONLY WHEN I REACHED MY GOAL. 

Only THEN could I give myself permission to take it easy. Only THEN could I LIVE my life. Only THEN could I cut loose and watch a movie at night. Sometimes I would even reward myself with a full-on vacation. HAPPINESS LEVEL ACHIEVED! 

Yeah, it was totally fucked. 

I’ve always been an achiever. Overachiever, let’s be real. Since I was outta the womb. Seriously. I’m harder on myself than anyone else will ever be.

And I didn’t realize it then but I spent MANY years of my life just overall pretty fucked up. High strung, anxious, always going after the next thing and the next thing, not being skinny enough, not being pretty enough, eating disorders and partying out the ying yang, and low low confidence unless I achieved.

Then I would be happy and thrilled for like, a day, and it would be back to square one while I went off to the races to knock down my next THING and count down again to when I could be happy, all while filling the void in me with shit like looking forward to my next party where I could just CUT LOOSE.  

This mentality is really fucking dangerous and detrimental. It’s unhealthy. And it makes your life 1000x harder than it’s ever supposed to be. It’s completely twisted. 

I would be scared to see the person I would be now had I not snapped out of it. 

Here’s the secret for doing really dope shit with your life. And being happy. 

Be present. 

All you have right now is this very moment. All you have right now are the resources and environment that’s available to you at this precise point in time. 

Are you truly present or is your brain mindlessly chattering to itself about emptying the dishwasher later while you half- read this post while scrolling Instagram and wondering how tomorrow’s work meeting is going to go?

If you answered the latter, you’re not present. 

How can you expect to be truly happy in this moment if you’re not even IN this moment? 

Deciding that it’s OK to choose to be happy right this very moment for the simple sake of being grateful for being alive another day on this planet, being present with yourself and whatever is happening in your world…

is ALL it takes. 

Choose to attend to the details of your life RIGHT NOW and the next day and the day after that, etc..

And watch how quickly all those seemingly teeny tiny choices add up. 

xo, al