One Day at a Time

“Whenever it rains, it always pours.”

All those years ago, I still remember my then-manager saying that.  I remember her acceptance with a shrug of the shoulders; her smile; her strength.  I remember how comforting I found it.  And it still comforts me whenever I think of her saying it.

There’s something about the unspoken acknowledgment, the understanding that the shared human experience includes suffering, and that sometimes it seems to happen all at once.

We all know that everything is temporary, and so both good times and bad times don’t last, but often they seem to compound on top of each other.  Our complex lives can be simplified to waves.  Nature’s patterns repeat, regardless of big or small we may be.  And sometimes we can seem very, very small.

Sometimes our feeling of being small is a reflection of our power in a situation, but it can leave us in awe.  I’ve never felt bad when looking up at a sky full of stars, and soaking in the vastness of the universe can help to put whatever we’re going through into perspective.  It’s like how just taking a step back and giving ourselves some space from our narrowed focus can open up our world, our mind and our options.  And it’s not always about our options for changing the situation, but changing our mindset.  And I think our mind works best taking life one day at a time.

Today, my life has been perfect.   Those I love most are alive and have a good quality of life; I have a job working with lovely people; I share my life with awesome people.  There are no storms, no war, no threats that I’m aware of.  My body is sore, but healing; I ate good food and drank clean water; I had a shower this morning.  I am blessed.

Tomorrow…. Well, my mind can’t stop at tomorrow, or starts imagining that every bad thing that can happen in the next 40 years could happen tomorrow, and I tense up and I cry at the thought of everyone I love feeling pain and suffering; and I fear my own demise and who will take care of me when I’m all alone in this world with no money and the earth is a pile of ashes.  I feel the pain of a future that may or may not happen, but if I obsess over tomorrow, I’ll lose today in needless suffering.  It’s also part of the shared human experience to create our own suffering.  We rush around in a hurry to get to the tomorrow that seems to only give us pain.

The only antidote is to live today, for today.  The more I’m living for today, the slower time passes, the more birds I see and hear, and my heart stops racing.  I can feel the rhythm of life and I can feel connected to everything that shares this weird, unexplainable experience.  I don’t know what the future will bring, but I know that life is too short to not live today.

Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, it was meant to be because it is.  The rain may be pouring, but at least I’m here to feel it.  The more I feel, the more I live.  And I live it one day at a time.