LIVING FOR TODAY
Are you looking for your one true love to spend the rest of your life with? Or … have you found the person you are going to spend your life with and if so, are you happy with that person? Or … have you given up on finding a soul mate because you feel that no one can be trusted? Where on the "life mate" spectrum are you? Do you still even believe in love?
There's something to be said about choosing the right person to be our life partner. But the reality is, most relationships end before those future plans even begin. Even if they don't end, the majority of people I know in relationships are very unhappy. Others, while arguably content in their marriages, seek diversions outside of their "monogamy promise" because their life partnership just doesn't provide the passion and excitement they yearn for. Others have given up on passion and excitement, preferring to tolerate their uncomfortable relationships. The rare lifelong relationships that occur between two people who stay madly in love with each other "till the end" happen so infrequently that I doubt most of us could name more that 1 or 2 examples from our lives of people we personally know who have achieved it.
Yet, from childhood we are conditioned to believe that there is a perfect someone out there that "will make us happy" for the rest of our lives. When we reach dating stage, we helplessly grasp for each new love interest in hopes that they will be "the one." Some of us aren't even picky. We gratefully and passionately love the first person who shows an interest in us; that's how lonely we are. Our elders didn't teach us how to love being alone. We never learned the importance of living for today. We have had a "future orientation" about relationships instilled in us since we came to life. The truth is that all we have is today.
Embracing Passion and Risk
Many people, like me, who have experienced transformative life challenges and now look at things differently than we used to, came to the realization that life is fragile and precious. It is not to be wasted with people who make us feel less than or those who chronically disrespect us. Peace is feeling safe in our own homes. We cannot do that if we are in toxic relationships. Similarly, we don't want to "play it safe" either. We want to take life by the balls, so to speak. We want excitement and passion. Life is too short to play it safe. We know that we must take scary risks if we are to live fully today.
For me, the transformative life challenge I experienced that changed everything is that I spent years chronically ill, disabled, touch-starved and in a miserable marriage at the weakest and most vulnerable time of my life. It took great patience and perseverance for me to get well enough to leave my marriage, start a new life, and start making every single day count. In order to really embrace the life I had a second chance at, as my health improved, I decided that I would no longer put walls up around my heart. I was going to love as fully and passionately as I could, knowing that my heart could get broken. A broken heart was still LIVING! And I wanted to live as hard as I could because I had gone years without having a life at all when I was sick and bedridden. With that in mind, when I was well enough to start dating again, I fell passionately in love with a man who clearly had addiction challenges.
Head over heels, I allowed my heart to sing for him. At first, his addiction issues didn't really affect me. I had my own life and wasn't dependent on him. Then, when he got sober for a while, I began to allow myself to make plans with him. For instance, I moved in with him even though looking back, I probably shouldn't have. I wanted to spend every moment I could enjoying the love and passion we had together. We became best friends – a first for me in a romantic relationship and something I will prioritize in future potential relationships. The danger of living for today in relationships is that you know that one day, you may have your heartbroken into a thousand pieces. It's fucking painful. But it's living. I'd rather love hard and lose hard, than live a mediocre life of safety. My relationship was both passionate and painful – some of the most heartbreaking pain I've ever experienced – but I wouldn't have it any other way. I was living.
A Journey to Living Fully
Living for today requires us to take chances. It's scary but it's also exciting and wonderful. I don't know about you, but I cannot stand long periods of boredom. I NEED excitement in my life. That means that every day, I look at opportunities that present themselves and ask myself questions like:
If I knew I was going to die tomorrow, what would I do today?
Does this make me happy today?
Will this support my values and goals leading to potentially amazing tomorrows?
Will this show the people I love how much I love them?
The thing with living for today is that every day counts as a day to be grateful and loving. Sure, there are days when we don't have the energy to be grateful or loving. But living for today means choosing each day to TRY and make today count. Hard days come. At some time or another, we all suffer. Life isn't meant to be easy. It offers us all of the possibilities of existence – painful or joyful as those possibilities may be. We must ask ourselves, "How can I make TODAY count? What can I do today that makes me feel grateful to be alive?"
We must also recognize that the happiness of our future depends on what we do today. In other words, we must go after our dreams TODAY. No more putting off that separation or divorce. That financial dream? Its not impossible. If others have done it, we can learn how to do it too. Relationship goals? We can't fall passionately in love tomorrow if we don't socialize today. Every moment is an opportunity for us to live life to the fullest.
Personally, I want to have peace and joy in my home every day. Not starting some day in the future, although that might be out of my control; but starting today. I've had to pack up and move out when relationships broke down. It was difficult and painful, but I knew that peace was behind the door of my new home. What I do today determines what I achieve tomorrow. It's a simple concept but it took a whole lot of HELL NO yesterdays for me to finally learn how to say HELL YES to today. I highly recommend it. ;)
Love Annie xoxo
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