In the last few weeks I’ve written about changes, about having the courage to be who we truly are, and being grounded in our beliefs, in our values, in our home, and in our family. While thinking about the changes that I want to make in my life, finding the courage to make those changes, and re-discovering my own grounding, I’ve found myself time traveling. I keep thinking about and remembering people, places, situations in my past. And then I jump to the future, and start thinking about the things I want to have, the places that I want to go, and I’m setting goals and timelines and making plans for all of those things. And I’m Quantum Leaping back and forth and back and forth over my life…and I realized I was neglecting today. I’m not being where I am. I’m not keeping the present in mind.

Now, there are several reasons for this, the main one being that I’m not particularly happy in my present. I have moments of happiness, but overall things aren’t really the way I would like. In fact, to be honest, there have been several moments in the past several months where I’ve been downright miserable. So I’m looking into my past to see when I was happier and how I can recreate that time and experience, and I’m looking into my past to see how I got to where I am now, so I can avoid taking those steps again. Then I’m looking into my future, to a time when I think I’ll be happier, to a time when I’m no longer here, in my current situation. I think that’s something that’s fairly common – when we don’t like where we are, we fantasize about where we could be, or where we think we should be. If we can’t physically leave where we are, we let our minds go to where we want to be.

Unfortunately, in doing so, we forget to look for the happiness that is in today. We ignore the good things that are present in the here and now. This place, these people, these emotions, this experience. This is laying the groundwork for tomorrow. This is giving us the tools we will need for tomorrow. This is strengthening us for tomorrow.

I want to remember that there is happiness and joy in this moment, in this place. Once I leave, the chances of me returning are slim to none. Yes, I want to remember my past and how it brought me to my today. Yes, I want to make my future better than my today. But I also want to be present and happy and joyful in my today.

I wrote the affirmations for this week to remind myself and all of us to be present.