Thursday 5 January 2012

What If.....

Good afternoon everyone! Happy 2012! Hope you all enjoyed a safe and wonderful New Year's Eve. We had the privilege of enjoying the evening with friends. You know you are getting older when you watch the ball drop in New York City which is 2 hours a head of where we live and call it a night at 10:30! It was a fun evening, kid playing, dogs running around and actual grown up conversation.

Our year has started off so wonderfully. Nothing spectacular has happened, just life seems so warm and cozy. I know...sounds sappy, especially to any of my close family and friends. Ha! But to be honest, it just is like that. Bills are paid, my kids are happy, in school, they have jobs, my husband has a great job....at the end of the day I curl up to go to sleep and I just feel so blessed and content.

One thing I have really been trying to do is not dwell on "what if's". You know those dreaded thoughts that eat at you. "What if  that cheque doesn't make it in on time?", or " What if my son doesn't make it in to college?" Those "what if's" can steal so much time from you. I have figured out to do the best I can, try to make dead lines, and then let it go.

Letting it go is hard. I am a die hard "what if's" and "worry this til I'm driving everyone around me crazy" . But then I really thought about it. Where was I going with all that worrying and fussing? Was I accomplishing anything? Was I fixing anything? Only thing I was accomplishing was stealing my days from myself and my family. How many weeks probably months or unfortunately years wasted on things I had no control on.

I read somewhere you can't go forward if you are always look back. How true!! Being sick has also shown me how precious time is. I can waste it on things I have no control on, or do the things I can, and then live in the moment and enjoy my life. I find contentment now in things I would have missed before because I was so busy worrying about things I couldn't do anything about. Something as simple as going out for a coffee and sitting quietly on the drive home with my husband is so enjoyable where before we would have been busy heatedly discussing "what if's" over something we couldn't fix or change. Funny how a change in mind set can affect so many people.

So next you feel yourself getting sucked into a "what if" moment, stop yourself. Ask yourself if you have done all you could have done for the situation and if the answer is yes, try and let it go. It is beyond your control. But your life, your immediate moment your are living in, IS in your control. Enjoy it! You only get this moment once. You can enjoy it, or "what if" it away. Its your choice.

I wish for you all the peace and contentment that I feel when I lay down to sleep at night.


3 comments:

  1. We were in bed at 11:00 too! And you know... nothing crazy happened overnight. It was a lot of fun spending time with you guys!

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  2. Really enjoyed your post, words to live by. I'm even going to use the elephant picture and post it on my fridge. Enjoy your day:)

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  3. I totally agree. Give it your all and then at some point you have to let it go. There was something that went like...''don't be stuck in the past nor caught in the worry of tomorrow but live for today, For today--is a gift. that's why they call it the Present.'' And i loved that. It's easy to put things into perspective...hard to put into practice though some days...but GLAD you have inner peace and contentment my dear dear friend as we enter 2012. =) luv ya. --Lori

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