Some days the struggle to get up, get dressed up and play in the adult world is too much to ask. I’d really rather kick my feet, scream and throw a fit that would have landed my butt back in bed at age nine. I didn’t always get good marks for playing well with others in school, because like most other children, I had days when I really didn’t want to play with anybody.
Don’t tell anyone, but I still have those days now.
Such was the course of the morning… As I awakened in the still dark hours of an Alaskan sunrise after a late night of chit-chat and planning. There’s a lot of life to be lived in the next two or three weeks and some of it has to do with how I will ‘play with others’. A few phrases stand out from the discussion last night, which I’ll share along with their meaning for me.
Wild Abandon -
The ability to be so totally and fully focused on living in the moment that nothing else matters in the entire world. This means to focus on not what I’m doing in that moment but rather to focus on God’s plan for my life in that moment. I can’t be anywhere other than where I am. That doesn’t mean I don’t have responsibilities and duties elsewhere, or that I can skimp on those duties and responsibilities, but rather that I can do what has to be done, and then allow myself to fully experience and enjoy where God has placed me (where I’ve chosen to be) in this moment.
Take Responsibility -
Do what matters. There are things in life that give us no real joy, and while we are entitled (by God and man) to seek happiness and find what brings true joy, there are things that must be done in order to experience that joy fully. Those things will make a difference in your ability to experience the joy that will fill you up. Take responsibility for the life you live, for the choices you make and make the choices that matter first, so you’ll have the time to enjoy the moments.
Experience Abundance -
When we do the work we’re meant to do, make the effort required to earn the benefits and bonuses we’re intended to receive then we can sit back and allow the abundant blessings of our efforts to flow over us while we experience abundance. This means that we don’t have to constantly worry about the details of life. God does provide when we do our part, his provision is ENOUGH. Living a life of abundance doesn’t mean we aren’t working and managing our lives (read FINANCES) ever minute of every day, but it does mean we know where each blessing comes from and we live each moment grateful for those blessings.
Live Gratitude –
Living a life of gratitude brings benefits and abundance. Please read that sentence again – Living a life of gratitude brings benefits and abundance. When we focus on feeling, truly feeling and expressing gratitude for even the smallest things in our lives (a magnificent view, the feeling of love, expressions of comfort) our feelings, our gratitude fills up our need for MORE. We don’t NEED, we feel grateful for what we have. The blessings and benefits of having what is ours, even if what we have is somewhat limited becomes enough. How much greater are we blessed when we express gratitude for what is ours? How much more can you be blessed if you simply felt and expressed gratitude for what you have?
Adopt Success -
Often, as life moves around us, we find ourselves feeling obsessed with what we haven’t done, what isn’t ours, what we haven’t achieved, and we allow those areas of lacking to overpower us and drag us down into victim status. If instead, we adopt success as our state of being, know the success we’ve experienced, we’ve accomplished and we’ve collected along our life path, our story changes. Our lives take on new meaning and we begin to recognize the greatness within our experience of living. Adopt success. Visualize the successes you’ve had in your life and know that there were even more that you haven’t counted. YOU are success. Live it. Be it. Do it.
Dare to be the kind of person that oozes success from a life of abundance filled with joy and gratitude because you take responsibility for the choices you make.
