Life, Living In The Moment, Pivotal Moments & More Questions Than Answers

Bang. Pivotal moment. (Note there was no therapy involved. Fabbylous. Love it. ‘Tis true we are our own best therapists!)

Aside: are we ‘given’ the information we need at exactly the right time when we need it? Or when we are ready to receive and not resist it?

Trickled throughout my own life I observe moments that have swung this living melarkee in a different direction.

The pivotal moments have come in the form of simple statements, brief conversations, an image, perhaps a piece of music or a person who was in my life for the time of the teaching and then left.

And of course the big events, or the events I have been conditioned to believe as big, the pleasant ones and those I describe as emotional horror.

I’m remembering right now the moment when someone asked me at a networking meeting, ‘Hi, where do you add most value?’ not the bog standard and typical ‘What do you do?’

That question stumped me for about two years because I didn’t know when I thought I did.

Further back there was the moment when I heard someone say, ‘You never know when you’re making a difference’, that was in ’96 and it has stuck with me down the years.

Would that mean that every moment has the potential to be pivotal?

I think so, what do you think?

What about the (perceived and taught) big life events?

They’re pivotal, aren’t they? Are they?

In shelf help land and the therapy world beyond there is plenty of instruction about living in the moment. I get it. But I don’t do it. Not enough. I have the learning, practice is still required.

I’ve already confessed to you I have spent more time living event to event, experience to experience and goal to goal.  It’s when faced and going through those big life events do I become aware of the what matters.

This might seem silly, but do we need to wait for big life events in order to wake up to life?

We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.

 Bill Watterson

We know as human beings time will carry on after we don’t exist, yes?

This is the knowledge we’ve had since the very beginning and yet we still wait. We live in the past, we project into a future, we forget about now. I have learning to do, so excuse me if I say even with the knowing there is some shit that happens in the now that would test the most mindful of souls.

Last week, Tipsy cat died. And as usual during any form of grieving, time appeared stopped and so (bliss) did the thinking around the stuff that really doesn’t matter. No worries. No fears of any external events. The stuff that really doesn’t matter just, well, didn’t. (Hence the bliss!)

I have more questions for you than any answers. I’d love your thoughts in the comments.

Are we cheating ourselves out of life by not being present to live each moment?

Can we always look at each moment as if it’s happening for the first time? If you’re like me and you know that each moment is all we have – not yesterday, nor tomorrow, how do we not let it slip away completely wasted?

Have you ever thought how much time you have wasted reading, learning, listening instruction about living in the moment, have you ever considered that you already know the reality?

Come back in a year or two or forty — I may have thought about this some more after I’ve put in more practice and more conversations that leave me with more questions than answers!