"Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself"
                                                                                  -Charlie Chaplin

Monday, October 19, 2009

Staying Present

In this day and age, where information moves at a mile a minute; in an industry where you're expected to be 10 steps ahead of the pack; in a community that is wrought with reliving its past - I'm finding this self-issued decree of staying present immensely difficult to maintain. I find that every time I'm feel ready to move on, my past comes knocking on my door. Conversely, I'm forced to look into the future and assess my moves now in order to survive the day-to-day.

A wise friend of a (also wise) friend once said, "If you straddle one foot in the past and one in the future, you'll find yourself shitting on today." Not the most eloquent turn of phrase, but an effective one nonetheless. I've said something similar many times - with all of this focus on my past (and in many cases, the future), it feels impossible to enjoy what I have now.

As I strike a balance between the past and the future - hopefully landing me somewhere in the present - my battle is being waged on the surprise ambushes from these opposing camps. Where my heart is concerned, I find more exhaustion in "moving on" then acting accordingly for any given situation. Moving on means cutting a piece of me off. It means, ideally, not gaining access to this part of me again. But what happens in the event if and when I need that access; to assess, to react, to act accordingly? I end up spending more energy pruning all of these emotional tendons then I do allowing them to slowly wither away.

I start to feel stupid asking for advice on the same old things, but again, letting go doesn't always seem like the most prudent choice or decision. As much as I fear the build up on either end of the time spectrum, I fear more losing those pieces. Are the too mutually exclusive? Can't there be a balance for both within the other balance? It's a lot to consider sometimes and more than some people care to understand, but that is where my head rests. While I try to lie between the past and the future, I work even harder at understanding and respecting both, rather than cutting either off or preemptively.

Ah yes, the all-too-familiar state of headiness. It's been a while, but it's still there, just below my surface.

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