I feel old!

November 24, 1991 was the day Freddie Mercury died. That was eighteen years ago!!! On December 8 it will be 29 years since John Lennon was killed. Jimmy Hendrix died on my 8th birthday — 39 years ago!!! And Jim Morrison has been gone for 38 years. These feel like huge numbers and it just doesn’t seem possible that so much time has passed. It seems like it was just yesterday, and I still feel a strong spiritual connection to them.

Those memories have a dimension of their own. My parents have been divorced for 34 years, but it seems like that was a hundred years ago. Time certainly is relative.

A life in a day

The other day I heard an interesting concept, which has since added a degree of lightness to my step and joy to my heart. What is it? “Every single day is a whole life.”

This approach has a fun aspect to it. Whereas “make the most of every day” has something close to admonishment in it for me — as well as a command to achieve, to view today as a life of its own gives me hope and excitement.

Perhaps it’s the idea of dealing with the day at hand. There’s no pressure to make the most of it, there’s just the challenge of living today. Yesterday I noticed that I was more in the now, enjoying the moment.

Wow! I got a few errands run, worked, had a doctor’s appointment (which I’d put off for around a year!), and in the evening both of my kids were here. I enjoyed their company. We talked, joked, played cards, and each had some time alone as well. It was simply a life, without the burden of the future or the past.

And today I have another life!

What the heck was that about?

After I finished the previous post, I went to clean up the kitchen. Such menial tasks tend to clear my head as well. My thoughts wandered, and it occurred to me that the purpose of that long rambler was to illustrate the difference between trying to convince oneself and actually being convinced. That is where the difference is between wanting to do something or take action, and actually doing it.

When I “try” to convince myself, that means I don’t believe it. When I am convinced, then I believe it. Simple as that, no “trying” necessary. That conviction seems to be the result of an “aha!-experience” — and that is something we cannot share with others. I can describe how it happened, but “aha!” is personal indeed — and that makes it all the more special and effective.

However, I will not refrain from offering a small piece of advice that works for me. The more often I do something different, try something different, go somewhere different — the more “otherness” I bring into my life — the more likely I am to have an “aha” and as a result be convinced about something. BUT, I cannot force it to happen! Nor can I make it stay a certain way. It’s my choice to surrender and be willing to believe.