Journaling Living in the Moment

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.” ― Groucho Marx

 

The past was a palette of your life, where you experimented at life, where you learned and relearned skills and skills for living, where you made mistakes, used the erasure of asking forgiveness and where you forgave.  It is something you learn to forgive yourself for.  If you had been meant to live perfectly, you would have been born with no will, no passion, and no emotions.  Yes, we missed opportunities, but look at what we did/do with them.  Yes, we made mistakes, and yes, we learned how to correct them.  We are not stagnant beings.  We all have a past, a present and a future.  What we do with them is all about choices.  Choose to live in the moment for in another moment, you could be done with it all.  

We cannot live in a way to be stagnant, nor live in a way to hinder our self, not progress.  Living means change.  Change means making choices to fit those changes.  The only love we really have is that that we give to ourselves.  No other love can fulfill us more.  We open up our minds and we take in everything we can:  Living learners. 

Part of living is taking chances, nor dreading sameness.  We need to make a mistake or two because it is that that defines who we are, right now, at the moment of the understanding that we made a mistake a moment ago.  

We will continue, every moment, to feel joy, to accept joy, to laugh, to daydream, to create, to make decisions.  We need to make the most of every situation that comes to us in the present moment.  That helps to caulk up the holes left from when we could have made better choices.  It allows for new learning and new ways of making choices.  We need spontaneity and we cannot have spontaneity if we are digging through old bones.  How boring our lives would be if we did not grasp every moment of the Present.  Today should not be yesterday's misery or tomorrow's regret.  

When I was doing this art journal page, I painted someone in thought.  Not someone beautiful nor thin, nor any of society's norms.  I am me and I am present and here I am!  How can you express living present?  Can you journal about being present?  Yes, you can!

©Carol Desjarlais 8.16.19