Growing Into You

“Today is a gift; that’s why they call it “the present”.” -Unknown

I was sitting here tonight holding my daughter when a thought hit me. Tomorrow, she will be six weeks old! I just thought to myself, “Wow, where did the first six weeks go?” The time she has been here has gone by in the blink of an eye. It was just yesterday I was holding her for the first time.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been running around Bloomington like there is no tomorrow. I have been trying to complete my internship, finish my independent study class, finish my regular class, and have been trying to decide what I am going to do for money come summer time. I have not actually taken the time to just slow down and enjoy where I am at.

I am at a place in my life right now that I will NEVER get back. I have about a month until I graduate from college, I don’t have a lot of bills to pay, and most importantly, my daughter is still a baby. Today when I realized what I have been doing for the past few weeks, I wondered what it was all for. Why am I completely stressing out about things that will get done? Yes, it is very important that I graduate, but my stressing out about it is not going to make it happen any quicker.

It seems like my entire life I have been waiting on something to happen. I couldn’t wait to drive, I couldn’t wait to play college baseball, I couldn’t wait to…whenever I got where I wanted to be, I always wanted something more. Now, here I am, and I feel like all of the great things in my past flew by so quickly, and I never got the chance to appreciate or enjoy the moments I had until they had already gone by.

Now, I have the greatest thing in my life, Peyton, and I am doing the same thing. This time, it is not that I want more; it is that I am stressing out about what is going to happen in the future. If I do not break the cycle of looking ahead, I will one day be looking back on what I did not enjoy to the fullest with her.Here is a list of a few things that I have thought of to help me (and you) slow down the hands of time.

• Take a deep breath: Whenever you feel like your life is getting out of control and your mind is going in many different directions, with one million different things to do, just stop what you are doing. Take two minutes to really focus on your breathing and concentrate on your surroundings. This will help you reduce your stress levels and slow you down. Then, when you come out of your relaxed state, you will be able to focus on where you are and plan where you are going.
• Let tomorrow come when it gets here: So many times in our life we are worried about something that is in the near future or something that may be in the distant future. When you actually think about it, why are you worried? Is there anything you can do about it now? Most likely there isn’t. If you have absolutely no control over it yet, deal with it when the time comes. Worrying about it now puts added stress on your life and will make you miss what is going on in the present.
• Let yesterday fade away: It is great to have memories, but living in your past (whether it be wishing you could be 18 again to regret) is never healthy to do. No matter how hard you try, the past cannot be changed. If you made a mistake a long time ago, learn from it and move on. Dwelling on it will only make you feel bad. If you wish you were 18 again, most likely in 10 years you’ll wish you were where you are at now. Was it great to be 18? Sure, but why not make it great to be the age you are now.
• Listen to music: When you are in your car or your house and you are constantly thinking about what needs to get done, just turn up your music and sing a long. I don’t know of any better way to live in the moment than to have an air guitar solo when you are by yourself. When you are listening to your music, it is almost impossible for you to think about anything else. Not only that, but it will lighten your mood and get you back on the right track.
• Go for a walk/jog: As it is getting warmer here in Indiana, I have found taking a walk with my family is a great way to let go of time. Going for a walk along a country road, just listening to nature is a great way for me to get my mind right. It brings a state of tranquility back into my life.
• Live in the moment: This is a combination of the entire list wrapped up into one. If you truly want to slow down time, you have to enjoy every single moment as it passes. If you do that, you will have no more wasted time. You will not look back in a month and wonder where it went. You will know where it went because you lived each and every last second to its fullest.

I could come up with hundreds of different tricks to make you live in the moment. The most important thing is that you truly do make each moment you have a great one. Embrace it and make it worthwhile. Never take the moment you are in for granted because it is a moment you will never get back.

If you liked this article, please share it on StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us or on Digg. I’d appreciate it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at 1:18 am and is filed under General Thoughts, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.