But What About Today?

The score never interested me, only the game- Mae West

I am sure that when Mae said these words, she was referring to her relationships with men, but when I saw it printed on the outside of a wine bottle- I related it to the bigger picture.

We all like to think that we'll reach that magic moment in life when everything will just fall into place. When we picture our future selves, we're the winners. Our jobs are challenging, but not stressful. We're well paid. We get plenty of vacation time, tons of family time, and heck, we're just soooo happy. Smugly happy.

In contrast to our future selves- our lives, at this moment, no matter how decent- pale in comparison. Real life doesn't stand a chance when compared to "in my wildest dreams" life. No matter how great your life might be, it can always get better. And it has to, because we're not just hoping for it, we're planning on it.

While I always believed that positive thought about my future was a good thing, I have been completely overlooking the other 3/4's of the picture: my life right now. Positive thought has been reserved for those daydreams about myself a few years down the road. The person I am right now and the life I am living this week is just the "before picture."

Putting all your hope-for-a-happy-life "eggs" in the future "basket" is dangerous, and I keep catching myself falling into this one-dimensional thought.

That's why this quote really stuck out. The score may not turn out to be what you had hoped it would be. Not everything in life is within your control. My Dad was 38 when he suffered a severe stroke that would leave him unable to roll over in bed. The only job he ever had since that day was a paper route that he could do mostly by electric scooter.

He worked his fingers to the bone right up until that day. The plan was to sacrifice now so that he could build a life for the future.

Little did he know that the best years of his life were the ones he just couldn't wait to "get through."

Try to go one day without daydreaming about the future (even if it's just thinking about the upcoming weekend)- if you're anything like me, you'll realize that you are almost always mentally somewhere in the future and very rarely in the moment.

I keep turning this little quote over and over again in my head: forget about the score, forget about the outcome, focus on the game, focus on living this life well.

Even if you find success (whatever that might be), the final score won't be sweet if you weren't truly present in the game.

Bring the Pain

"Burnout is less a sign of failure and more that you gave yourself away" - Mark Gorkin

The wisest woman I know advised me to just settle into the ride. "It's a process," she proclaimed, "it's gonna take some time for you to get back on your feet, and you can try to fight it, but it won't get you anywhere."

Design school 2010 is out. I am so scattered. My creativity is just not there... and a person can't force creativity.

Turns out I don't really like being poor either. It's stressful, and my refusal to look directly at our bills doesn't help. Sideways glances doesn't mean the bills don't exist, it just proves me to be poor and stupid.

Life just isn't as peachy as I would like it to be...

Is anyone's?

If you get kicked down over and over again, but can somehow find beauty, joy, hope and contentment when you're closer to "the bottom" than the top- what kind of statement would that make?

Sometimes things get tough and we're forced to deal. So much feels out of my immediate control and, most likely, things will get worse before they start getting better (short term pain for long term gain right?). While I might be at the mercy of lousy pay cheques, fall-out from my burnout and stagnant creativity- I do have control over my attitude/out-look (as annoying as it is).

So I'm raising my half-cup of tepid tea: here's to the pain, here's to the poverty-line income, here's to feeling slightly lost.... bring it on.

My goal is to find contentment here, to soak-in every blessing- because life will never be perfect, not on this side of heaven- so to live this life well I must learn to accept what cannot be forced and revel in the simplest of pleasures.