“Stress is wanting something to be the way it isn’t.”
Wow.
Take a minute.
Reread that quote.
Wow.
When I saw this quote recently, I instantly knew the power
in those words. I can totally feel myself becoming “stressed” immediately because
of how real that statement feels to me. I know that I live my life this way
daily. I always want things to be different than they are, and when they aren’t,
I completely become stressed.
Ouch.
Busted, however the good news is, completely my fault and in
my control.
For example, looking at my week this week, I am overwhelmed
and stressed just by all the events written on my calendar. As I take each
event written there, in my handwriting, my own doing, I realize that 85% of
those events, I don’t want to do. I don’t
want to attend that event, go have that dinner, coach that game, yet, I have
committed….Why? More importantly, just because I committed and I could easily
change my mind on some of them, I don’t.
Why?
Well….
I stress that I will
disappoint people if I don’t show up.
I stress that I am
lazy if I am sitting home watch a movie instead of doing something active.
I stress that I am not “living” if I don’t travel a certain
amount of a weekends, hang out with my friends every Saturday night or go on
enough exotic vacations.
I stress that my life has changed and I have grown and I
really don’t want to do the things I used to want to do, but feel like I have
to.
I could go on and on. However, the biggest lesson here is
that every one of these statements is all stresses. Not one of them deals with
what I really want to do in that moment. They don’t talk about my happiness,
they address my stress. Man, when looking at it that way, it kind of freaks me
out that I am so worried about what others will think, how negative I talk about myself and what
emotions I really bring to that outing
when I am only going because I feel stressed into going.
What if I could live in the moment…every moment and not
worry about what has not happened yet? What would the world be like if we were
all living right then and there, if we weren’t in our thoughts, in our stresses,
but right there in the moment, experiencing life as it is? Incredible is what
comes to mind. Love and passion would grow immensely. Through love, the world
could eliminate hate. We could love ourselves exactly as we are. We could love
each other as equals.
When thinking about life in that way, I am no longer
stressed,
I am excited.
I am inspired.
I am ready to make a change.
We have a choice to clear away some of that calendar.
We have a choice to start doing the things we “want” to do
without any lingering stressful thoughts of why we shouldn’t be doing them.
We have a choice to put ourselves and own well-being first
before anything or anyone else.
We have a choice to control our thoughts and what effects
our emotions.
We have a choice to stay in the moment and not get caught up
in the “what might happen” scenario.
We have a choice to ask ourselves if this stress will matter
in an hour, a month or year from now. When we decide it doesn’t matter, we have
a choice to let go.
We have a choice to live in the moment.
What will you choose?
