Are You Alive Today?
If you are reading this, you are alive. That’s huge – and a matter of tremendous positivity.
With the loss of one of the great champions of justice, many of my friends are feeling hopeless.
Let’s be honest – things are beyond distressing for just about everyone right now. The uncertainty is at levels I know I’ve never felt before. Even if you’ve had personal uncertainty, the general, collective uncertainty today is palpable.
We are still dealing with COVID-19 (and the steady 35,000+ new cases a day). There is a super-ugly election between a candidate that stirs little excitement – but offers hope – and another who stokes inappropriate fires – and lies constantly. Breonna Taylor’s murderers are still free. An utter hypocrite is responsible for the actions and inactions of the Senate.
That doesn’t even touch on anything happening outside of the United States.
All of this just makes the future nothing but uncertain. Nobody knows what is coming and nobody can predict accurately a damned thing. That stirs fear, hopelessness, anger, depression, and other negative emotions like they exist all by themselves today.
Except that they don’t. There are always choices available. You can always decide on things that will impact your life experience.
Are you live today? If so, you can choose for yourself how that looks.
Being mindful of the moment
Please take a second to answer these questions:
- What are you thinking?
- How do you feel?
- What are you feeling?
- What is your plan for the day?
Please pause and answer these aloud. Hell, write them down right now, if you can.
In the moment you answer these questions you are mindful. To answer these questions, you become conscious of your headspace/mindset/psyche. That is awareness.
You’re alive – which means you are capable of being mindful of where you are, who you are, how you are, and what you are doing. If you dislike the answers to any of the above questions – you can change them.
What you think, how you feel, what you feel, and actions you choose to take belong to you. You have the control to make choices for how your life is.
Taking in all the negative energy from the collective consciousness is disheartening. It’s hard not to feel the uncertainty, fear, and anger. Subconsciously, you absorb all of it without any filters.
This is why taking a moment to be aware and mindful is so valuable. It opens you to the filters you need to choose your thoughts and feelings – rather than be bombarded and overwhelmed by the collectives’.
Mindfulness of the moment shows your true headspace. That allows you to recognize where you are – and what options are available to you.
Being alive is all about possibility
I know you may be in a bad position. Perhaps you are unemployed and struggling to make ends meet. Maybe you have a job- but it is crushing your soul. You might have kids risking COVID-19 exposure at school. Maybe you are unsure how to work your job and remote learning for your kids at the same time. You might be feeling down and distressed.
That’s a part of life. There are struggles, challenges, and bad days. You may be utterly unsure of how to get from here to there – whatever that means to you. It may seem hopeless, useless, and utterly not worth it.
I get that. I’ve been there – so I understand completely. There are days I am enraged by all this madness. Also, there are days I feel hopeless.
However, through it all, I know that just being alive, here and now, is amazing. Maybe today sucks, perhaps tomorrow looks no better. But that doesn’t mean there is not possibility nor potential for change.
That’s where being mindful in this moment can help. Unless you are in immediate dire straits, you have possibility. There are options. You can choose differently.
While there is a very limited number of things you can do for the big-picture issues – your life is wholly your own. Hence, you can decide to choose for your life ways and means to make it what you desire it to be.
If you are alive – and I’m going to assume you are if you’re reading this – the potential is yours. The possibilities are virtually infinite.
Look within, not without
In our quick-fix instant-gratification society, we tend to look outside ourselves for things.
All advertising is trying to sell this to you. Buy the car and be more attractive to the opposite sex. Drink the wine to show off how classy you are. Wear the outfit to show how intelligent you are. Consume, damn you!
Hence, we frequently look outside of ourselves for validation, acceptance, and affirmation of our character. Thus, where we fit inside the big-picture and collective consciousness matters more than it should.
We are, each of us, individuals. Nobody but you is in your head, just as I’m the only one in mine. Every single person has their own unique perception of reality, as such.
Our individual realities come together in groups of varying sizes to form the collective consciousness. The inner bits together are still internal – despite external “appearances.”
All the power that appears to be without begins within. The collective is nothing but a gathering of all those together.
That’s why, by and large, power is an illusion. It’s either been projected or drawn-in by those who hold it.
That power comes from you. Your thoughts, feelings, and actions, likewise, come from you, too. That’s why looking within shows you more potential and possibility than you may readily realize.
You are alive. That means that you are capable of choices if you are not in a good place right now. Every little bit counts – so make the choices in the moment that can shift you out of the negative.
We have resources and tools unlike any time in history before. If you are alive today you have endless potential. When you feel negative – take that to heart, be mindful, and make new choices and decisions for change – because you can.
Being alive seems hard sometimes
But via thought, feeling, and action – the possibilities are endless
Knowing that you are alive, and you contribute to the collective consciousness – you can choose your thoughts, feelings, and actions for yourself. When you realize that power comes from within, not from without, you can see how there is virtually endless potential and possibility. That ultimately empowers you.
When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that can spread to people around you. This can create a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.
You can build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of the current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude.
An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity. That positivity can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.
This is the three-hundred and forty-sixth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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