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Live Through This Day
Just for today, I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle my whole life problem at once. I can do something for twelve hours that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime.
It’s so easy to read the words and say, “Okay, I can do that.” But is it really easy? Especially, the “do something for twelve hours that would appall me” if it was a regular part of my life…”
Your challenge is… can you do something for even one minute… let along for twelve hours if it is something that really appalls you? Understand… the word appall means horrify, disgust, and sicken. For twelve hours? half a day? When something is horrifying, disgusting, and sickening… five minutes can seem like a lifetime… twelve hours would feel like eternity.
Okay, let’s make this challenge easier. Let’s shift from appalling to things going wrong around us? Say the washing machine overflows and floods all over the house… The kids clog all the toilets in the house with rolls of toilet paper… and the dog makes runny poop all over your new carpet…
Yes, these are pretty appalling events, but much easier to deal with than the overwhelming feeling intended to be tackled by the verse… “I can do something for twelve hours that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime.”
Events are temporary… not likely to happen again tomorrow. That’s what the spirit of this verse is intended to convey… Nothing is forever.
As Henry David Thoreau says, “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land, there is no other life but this.”
Henry David Thoreau is saying exactly the same thing as this verse; “live through each moment”… find YOUR eternity in the NOW…
The “intention” of this verse is to remind you of your need to stay focused in the present moment… recognizing NOW IS your eternity…
Are you willing to develop empathy, concern, and kindness and let go of your disgust, shock, dismay, or outrage over what you may face? This verse reminds you that joy cannot be found by worrying about the total journey of your life… Your disgust, shock, dismay, or outrage are products of your attitude.
Trying to control every aspect of your lives is exhausting and impossible.
This verse reminds you to start each day fresh… This verse reminds you to let go of yesterday’s troubles…
This verse reminds you to let go of yesterday’s problems, fears, and doubts…
Are you willing to face your problems, fears, and doubts and recognize that this is just incessant mind chatter consuming your thoughts, usually, not reality.
If, fear for your safety is a reality… Get out! If, you are not physically safe… Get out!
Otherwise, if you are physically safe and just sick and tired of your circumstances; are you willing to accept that you don’t need to allow yesterday’s problems to consume you today?
When will you decide you are sick and tired of being sick and tired? When will you bring your problems, fears, and doubts into the light? In other words, when will you bring them into your conscious thoughts? When you consciously admit that you are afraid your problems, fears, and doubts will never go away they lose much of their power. It is only by keeping them hidden they have power over you. When you face your problems, fears, and doubts and look at them in the light of day you realize there is much you can do to change either your perception or the reality of your circumstance.
You need to remember that this is a brand new day and you have the choice whether it will be filled with joy, love, trust, and lifelong happiness or problems, fears, and doubts.
You need to remember that when you live through this day only and you blow it sometime during the day and slip back into your fear-based thinking: you have not failed… At that moment, you have a choice… a choice to quit and sink back into your old thinking or pick yourself up and start your day fresh.
But, you say, “It’s seven o’clock at night! The day is almost over.”
It doesn’t matter if it’s seven o’clock in the morning or seven o’clock at night. You can always start your day fresh. You can always choose to shift from a position of panic, despair, and worry to that wonderful position of joy, love, trust, and lifelong happiness.
If you focus, really focus… you know engage your whole being into your activities of the day, there really isn’t any room left for worrying or being upset. That’s one of the wonderful things about living in the moment. When you focus on each moment. Give each moment your full attention. Troubles melt away.
You have to be careful and not focus on changing too many things at once. As you change your thinking, you get excited. you see this can work and you want everything to change NOW! This is not an instant pudding fix. This is real life. You need to be careful that you don’t turn your world upside down in one day. You don’t need to change everything about yourself and your relationships; all in one day.
The way you don’t find yourself in a big mess is to remember to live in the moment. Give each moment your full attention, Focus! Solutions appear. Troubles melt away.
You have a choice how you think. Yes, you have a choice. You have a choice about the kind of day you choose to have by how you choose your attitude and reaction or response to situations.
Reminder: When you REACT to a medicine you usually end up in the emergency room. When you RESPOND to a medicine it heals you. Your thinking is the same thing. You have a choice. If you react to a problem, doubt, or fear, it consumes you. If you respond to the MOMENT you shift one step closer to joy, love, trust, and lifelong happiness.
When painful memories or frightening concerns pop into your minds you have a choice. You can shift your thinking. When you are really stuck and just can’t focus? One way to shift your thinking is to sing an upbeat song.
Keep the words to a positive song in your head. If you don’t know one; learn one. If necessary, write the words down and keep singing it until you know the words by heart. Keep the song light and silly, if possible. Singing a silly upbeat song really helps shift us from a position of panic, despair, and worry, to that wonderful position of joy, love, trust, and lifelong happiness.
Did you know there is a wonderful term for songs that stay in our minds and play over and over? That term is song worm. Aren’t positive song worms so much better than those negative, fear filled thought worms we have been carrying around?
Live as if there might be no tomorrow… there might not be… our lives can be over in a flash… no warning… just done… Two weeks ago on our Sunday show with Dr. Barry Sultanoff had a brief power outage. When he came back on line his first words were, “Remember, life can end just that quickly.”
Think of those you loved that are no longer here. How much they would have loved just one more day. Did you love them enough to appreciate and celebrate the opportunity you have to live your life fully? Do you live your life filled with your love and the love you felt for the person no longer here? Fill your life with all the love there is. Love is powerful. Love is healing. Love is life giving.
This simple, yet powerful, verse presents a clear holistic tool you can apply to shift your constant worrisome thought worms from panic, despair, and worry, to that wonderful position of joy, love, trust, and lifelong happiness.
Recognize each day is a unique gift. No matter how long you live, you will never have another day like today. Joy, contentment, and pleasure in being alive are found by letting go and relaxing; accepting rather than struggling; and by loving the life you have been given - warts and all.
Jim Valvano, said it so well. He was the basketball coach at North Carolina State U. and won NCAA championship, 1983. Jim died in 1993 at age 47. (1946-1993) He said, “To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.”
Kenneth L. Holmes
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