It’s that time of year when summer is turning to fall, when the daylight is disappearing quickly and the trees are assuming the majesty of fall colours. Soon they will be bare, ready to stand strong against winter and the harshness of the cold.
It’s a great time to look at ourselves and begin to shed what we no longer need to carry too.
Everything around us changes. The world is built on change. I am not who I was a year ago, nor do I expect to be the same a year from now. And I accept that those closest to me will change too.
Change can be frightening as it reminds us of how fragile our existence really is, and how temporary our life situation is. We arrive, we live, and then we are gone. This is the one thing we all have in common.
One day, we will all arrive at the same finish line, and that is just the way it is.
For me, embracing my own mortality has made me a better person. I no longer cling to objects or to other people, because I know that in the end none of it will belong to me.
I appreciate what is in my life now, and I accept that things come and go. It’s a very freeing way to see life.
I am not defined by my possessions, nor do I need to accumulate more stuff to make myself important, or to prove something to somebody. While I enjoy living a life of abundance and having nice things, they do not define who I am nor are they responsible for my happiness.
Nothing on the outside will ever make me happy, but how I choose to view life can make me either joyful or miserable.
I choose joy.
Everything that has happened in my life has brought me to where I am now. Everything I am doing today will take me to where I am going. By consciously creating my life now, I am building a future full of peace and love.
Each morning when I open my eyes, I have another day to choose who I want to be and how I want to feel. If I look around and don’t like what I am seeing, then I have the power today to begin to make changes.
It doesn’t need to be any more difficult than that.
Life is too short to do work that doesn’t inspire you, to spend time with people who hurt you, or to hurt yourself by your actions and words. The fact that you showed up in this world is a miracle and each day that you are here has the potential to be whatever you choose it to be.
By accepting that you alone are responsible for how you see the world and how you feel, you regain the power to begin to design the life that you wish to live.
This isn’t a dress rehearsal. Putting off your happiness for a time in the future when you think you will finally have what you need so you can be who you want is a waste.
There is only now, and how you feel now is what your future is going to look like. Be the happiness and the love and the joy that you are looking for, then whatever does or doesn’t happen won’t matter.
You will already have everything you ever wanted.