The Reason We’re Not All Here is Because We’re Not All There

For much of my life, I have always been preoccupied about the future.  It’s not about a fear of the end of the world.  Rather, I’ve identified it as a focus on “what’s next,” “what I need to become,” and an inability to live in and enjoy the here and now. 

This way of thinking first came to me as I reflected on my time serving a mission for the LDS Church between the ages of 19 and 21.  Besides being an overall emotional mess during those two years, I remember always being worried about what I wasn’t; that I was never quite good enough.  I established a high bar for myself which I could never achieve, and in retrospect I likely was always in a low-level depressed state.  It was challenging for me to not worry about what I wasn’t since in my mind serving a proselyting mission for the Church required a high level of spirituality and dedication.  I allowed what I wasn’t to distract me from feeling the present. I was always beating myself up, unable to appreciate the singular events around me which happened routinely.  I had many awesome experiences in those 24 months, but the time could have been so much more and I could have been happier.

Up until a few years ago, I was caught in this same “future” vortex.  I had a breakthrough as a result of learning in graduate school about the importance of “being in the here and now” with clients. There are particular therapies that focus not on the past or what people aren’t, but on the present and what people are.  As I learned about these therapies, they resonated with me, they felt RIGHT.  I realized that I should not only focus my therapies in my future practice on the here and now, but that it was the way that I should focus my life.  When I finally began implementing this mindset each day, it was a great feeling to finally let go.  The transition continued while I implemented this paradigm shift as I went on a vacation with Ann to visit some of her family in Maryland.  The evening we arrived I made a promise to myself that during the duration of the vacation I would focus completely on what was happening in the very moment and not concern myself about what was to happen the next day or a few days hence.  I wanted to be completely invested in interacting with the family and to just “go with the flow.” I am pleased to report that these were some of the greatest days that I had experienced in years.  I felt focused and contented in the present.  I felt part of the extended family, and I really tried to live in the moment what we were doing.

This transition is continuing on.  As I have become more involved with addiction recovery recently in my profession and in my church responsibilities, and have come to more fully understand and embrace its precepts, I have also allowed the Serenity Prayer, so much a part of addiction recovery, to become an integral part of my own recovery from a never-contented “future” person to a calmer, more grace-oriented “now” person.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.                                                                        

In this transition, I have given and continue to give to God each day my weaknesses and inadequacies, all that I am not, and try to live right now in His mercy and grace (Tenth Step!).  As I embrace what I am not, and focus with courage on what I can do and am doing and becoming right now, I feel the serenity spoken of in the Prayer.  And to quote a famous phrase, “that has made all the difference in the world!”