I thought about not writing today...
I am tired, and a busy day lays ahead,
but, I needed to.
Writing helps me stay balanced, and stay focused.
I hope reading gives you a similar satisfaction ;-)
Yesterday was just another day...
Challenges at work, differing opinions, sales never coming in quite as fast as you'd want... Lots of good things happening, but overshadowed by the stuff not going quite my way.
Things at home wonderful - and full of the normal challenges of raising two teenage boys, and managing the daily noise. Lots of good things happening, but overshadowed by the stuff not going quite my way.
This morning I tried to meditate...
"who and what are you most grateful for?"
is the question constantly asked these days by my wonderful "Headspace" app...
That should not be a hard question. I am blessed in my life with great fortune, loving people around me... Why is the answer so hard to FEEL?
The conversation for meditation focuses not just on being grateful in your mind, not just rationally being grateful... but focusing on the FEELING of gratitude... on how gratitude feels in your body... in your being.
I feel rationally very grateful, though I notice that I struggle to give people credit for my gratitude. I am fairly sure that is some type of self-defense mechanism.
I am more grateful than ever for my wife, my life partner, by most loving friend... and, I could be moreso.
I have not mastered gratitude. I am keenly aware of it rationally, but it is not an emotion, a feeling, that is born in my by default. I will not stop pushing until I am there.
Even as I was in the tub this morning (yes I love the bathtub) focusing on gratitude... I noticed that even when I am grateful for things, like my work, my role, my opportunity.... everything I am seems to hedge part of the emotion on the next stage that I am trying to accomplish...
I am grateful for my health (and want to get fitter).
I am grateful for the freedom and the trust I have in my role (and I want to do it better).
I am grateful for my family (and I wand to spend more time with them).
I need to keep pushing to feel gratitude without caveats, to exhale completely, not holding part of my breath in for the next achievement / accomplishment / level that I have somehow defined in my head as important to hit.
It was hard getting out of bed this morning, not because of the amazing life I have to step into, but because of the amazing life I keep chasing and can't seem to fully catch.
I don't know if its a sickness or a gift... I just know its exhausting some days.
Writing helps me balance... it helps me remember...
the IS of my life (and how amazing it is, both relative to the world and in the absolute)...
the WANT of my life - as a healthy energy rather than a constant unmet need...
and turn down the WISHING in my life - that part of me that constantly wishes I was already "there", as if "there" was a place I really understood ;-)
Life is a moment by moment sport... a day by day sport...
And, yesterday and today... are just another day...
another opportunity to breathe, try, and, to the best of my ability, BE...
Nobody said it was easy ;-) And, few have it easier than I do...
"who or what are you most grateful for?"
I shouldn't try to find the "perfect" answer... not even the "right" answer...
I should just start answering it... and never stop...
grateful for
my wife's kiss...
that my son's got up healthy this morning...
that my car works...
that I have a great and challenging place to go spend my day...
that I love my office space...
that I have great people to work with everyday...
that I am in the role I have spent a lifetime trying to achieve...
that I am trusted and respected by the vast majority in my role...
that my father is feeling better and our relationship right now is amazing,
that I have amazing friends...
that I will get to see my boys again tonight...
that I am alive...
that I can be a better version of myself...
and there I go again...
grateful for YOU.. for HARMONY... for this conversation...
for just another day...
Nestor