This moment in life

I have changed the direction of my life at fairly regular intervals during my five decades of living, and many people I know are doing the same. This can happen because of circumstances such as loss of a job, or the desire to do something different with your remaining life. In the early 1990s, I had one of my regular life-crises, in which I examined what I’m doing, assessed how comfortable I was with my life at that moment, and looked at what I wanted. During that particular introspective period, I came up with a tag line to describe how I want my life to be, and it continues to serve me well. It is: “I want a job that I love to get up for in the morning, and that increases my prosperity.” Part of this process is knowing when to take a risk, rather than playing it safe. (Note: use a little bit of caution and make sure you have a safety net of some sort, such as a day-job, sufficient savings or a supportive partner.)

To make life-changes happen, I must be in touch with myself, aware of the present moment, and willing to take a risk. A writer and musician I know, Kenton Whitman, writes about living a life that is rooted in the moment. One of his recent postings expresses this view exactly, “It’s all about discovering this very moment, and finding that if we stop trying to force life into little boxes, it blossoms in infinite perfection. The magic answer is that we don’t have to work hard to live an amazing life – we just have to cease all the habitual effort we usually apply to trying to force life into boxes. In this way, our life becomes amazing when we stop trying so hard. Yes, it sounds like a paradox, but it’s also a truth you can discover for yourself” (Whitman, June 29, 2007). Visit his web site, Zen-Inspired Self Development, at http://kentonwhitman.com/ .