I have been working on a concentrated effort to be in my moments as they are happening.  I have had a habit for much of my life to always desire something else, somewhere better or simply the end of the place that I perceive that I am in.  The problem with that type of thinking is the loss of living life where I am.  Here, right now.

I am a proponent of action and change.  I believe that we should always be learning and growing, changing and evolving.  It is not this sort of activity or motivation that I feel I should avoid.  There is not one iota of growth potential that I would not connect myself to… I am driven in this lifetime to be the best that I can be and to do so by taking the individual experiences, turning them into lessons and compiling the results into the better days that I potentially have ahead.

What has happened for me in many of my years is that I have not enjoyed the individual experiences.  I have not been paying attention to where I am because I am spending too much time trying to see where I would rather be.  What I have learned of late is that the lessons are the journey that I really need to experience.  The moments are vital to my growth.  Where I am is as important as where I will be.  Not to get too existential…  but realistically it would not matter where I am going if all I do is look towards the future.  Why?  Because if the behavior were to continue how would I know if I got to that future  when I am too busy looking for yet another one.

Living in the moment has never been something I understood how to do.  I am a Pisces.  We are dreamers, schemers and purveyors of fantasy.  If I am looking towards what I always feel is a better way for me, it stands to reason that I can’t possibly ever really achieve some form of satisfaction or end result.  How will I know?  Is there an ultimate goal?  Am I in a long race towards a finish line?

The truth is that FEAR is a factor in not being able to live in a moment.  What if it is not enough?  What if you don’t have what you feel you should have or aren’t in the place you feel you should be?  Self-centered comparisons to the world around you will always provide you with the visual drugs that tell you what is better than what you are or have.  I could have better teeth… could live in a different house, perhaps even in a different city.  I could have a better job, a more rewarding relationship and God knows I could lose a few pounds and be more attractive.

All my moments have been telling me that I am not good enough and if I get to that place over there I will be better.  The fact remains that I am in a wonderful place in my life.  There are problems that I will find solutions for and things that I don’t quite understand… but my adventure is teaching me that the process of working THROUGH these things is the treasure of the path.  Jumping to the quick fix or the new place or time to avoid or run from my moments will only insure that I am going to re-visit these moments again in a different way.

So I stop.  I breathe.  I just am.

Today I am.

Be Happy.  Be Well.  Be.

I am reminded on my path that the road does not always reveal itself.  Inspiration and clues sent forth to provide a softer and easier way are there for the taking.  My experience has provided me with such tidbits… but I have also missed many along the way and created diversions and roadblocks, pain, confusion and even sadness and loss.

It could be said that these roadblocks were lessons that may (or may not) have provided me with alternative maps and valuable instruction towards the truest meaning of my path.  I cannot possibly know if a path is pre-destined or determined by the tools and tricks provided to us through programs and books.  Likewise I cannot be sure if luck is a part of the process in a lifetime.  What if I am not in a place that would provide me the inspiration and thus I am forced to find out by more difficult or even arduous methods?

There can be no denial that life’s path is, or can be, a matter of ‘right time, right place’ or the dreaded opposite.  But the point of listening is not about missing out on hearing something that you do not know exists… or that you are not in proximity to.  It is about making sure that you are in your now and out of judgment in order to hear what your higher power has put you in place to experience moment by moment.  Life truly is not worth the ride if we cannot experience it as it is occurring in front and all around us.  There are things to see, hear, feel, understand, question, grasp and retain… as a page in the diary of your own experience.

It could also be said that something not heard or experienced is simply not destined for your path.  But I must question, for myself, just how much I can “control” as a soul who wants to work towards fulfillment and betterment of my soul and relationship with the God of my own understanding.  If I am in the right frame of mind or judgment it is entirely possible that I will be in a more willing state to HEAR what will inspire and change me, and possibly change the course and direction of the path I am living.  The bottom line for me must be that I do not know if the path I will experience in the future is a set one or one that could take different routes depending on the way I react or understand the current place I am within it.

Very existential.

The final point I would like to raise about how we listen is within our own judgments of who might be able to inspire.  I have often found myself in a place where I don’t feel the person or persons I am in the presence of has anything to offer.   The question I have had to ask myself over the years is “how do I know where I will hear something that might change my life completely?”  Is there some sort of law that only certain”types” of people can provide me insight?

When I am in a meeting of alcoholics anonymous, for instance, it is not required that someone have a certain amount of time to provide a message, a line, a story or a piece of information that can move me, inspire me or turn me around on a situation or problem that I am currently facing.  If I allow myself to “tune out” because I don’t think this person is going to be able to offer me anything I may miss something that could do wonders for me… or simply make me feel better.

For me the choice of opening my mind, heart and ears to wherever I happen to be has provided me with insights and wisdom that has allowed me to grow and become more and more the person I honestly believe I am meant to be.  What has happened as a result is something that provides me with happiness and pride.  What could happen fills me with faith and hope.

And all I do is truly listen without judgment.

Be Happy.  Be Well.  Be.

The question is whether or not I am already directing.  How much control do I actually have on my own life… and destiny?  How wise would it be for me to make snap judgments and decisions that would pull me into a new chapter?  Sometimes taking the leap of faith can be a very advantageous, courageous and genuine way to pull the adventure back into one’s life.  Sometimes it can set back and provide a lesson that hopefully will provide a new and better perspective to the world around us.  Both ways it tends to pull me out of a simple existence and back into the challenge of rising to become a better soul in a difficult world.

To do this I must remember the bottom line is that at all times we have the choice to do what we want the way we want to do it.  I have a feeling, however, if I were to live my life with that type of abandon in choice-making,  there may not be as much opportunity to walk through the things that I tend to want to make the choices about.

Being a thinker is a reward and a painstaking detriment.  On a daily basis I dissect and rebuild the world around me as if to evaluate each and every thing that is in my realm for the best possible results and the worst possible motives involved.  A thinker is often on the offensive and the defensive at the same time.  There is the side of hope, faith and fantasy… the half-cracked smiles of wishful thinking and dreams and then there is the plotting and resentment of things that “might” happen and their consequences.

But everything has a consequence.  Even if I were to choose randomly to do things that seem to be absolutely right and straightforward.  Even if the choices are done with the best of intentions…. My direction isn’t always clear or adhered to.  Many times it is simply up to the fates to decide how a result will reveal.  Sometimes pilot error does not consider all of the variables involved in the way something will turn out.  Decisions made in haste or with too much planning can often lead to the loss of instinct or intuitive guidance.

The best of direction does not always translate to the desired final result.

But I still fall back on the wise advice given me many years ago that reminded me that there were NO wrong choices / decisions… just consequences for everything we do.  Are you willing to accept the consequence?  Are you prepared to find yourself in similar or worse situations based off of a choice?  What will you do then?  Will you wish that you hadn’t made that choice or whip up that batch of lemonade from the lemons you chose to pick in the first place?

It seems that my life has been filled with these conundrums for months and months.  The craving for change… the great ideas… the offers that don’t sound quite right and the ones that sound too good to be true.  The need (nay ADDICTION) for the known… and the reliable.  The fear of what if?  All of these things and many more provide me a fodder for many a journal page as well as hours and hours of endless conjecture and tennis games between faith and fear (it can be utterly annoying and often surprising just how many sets some of these tennis games can go…)

Yes, I want to direct.  I want to write the script, cast the characters, film the footage, and edit the result.  I want to control my happiness and pave the path towards a meaningful existence.  This is the the bottom line of the daily trudge through the muck and mire of a complicated world.  For the most part I am enjoying the book, the screenplay and the many chapters that are churning out.  There are days, however, that I feel that I am trying to rewrite history… but no matter how much control I give myself or see myself having… there is always the final realization that I am not truly in charge.

I may be directing… but it would seem there will always be a producer calling the ultimate shots.

My week ahead I must provoke a plot twist… a change of direction… and some clarity in the overall plot.  My direction will provide the impetus for these things… but my challenge is to continually stay out of the result.  (Will the choice simply be “Let It GO!”)  On the days when I want to direct the most it is often very obvious that I must allow for the path to be revealed.  I want to enjoy the remainder of this chapter and insure that the chapter ahead is not one of digging myself out of another hole.  As much as I want the chapter to change… I must not deny or ignore the chapter I am still within.

I continue to look for “onwards and upwards”.  My plan is a lot of relevance for my character and a clean, smooth and fluid transition from one scene to the next.  I’ve directed enough to know I must trust myself and my intuition regarding the piece I am directing… but I must also know the story and characters well enough to pull out that winning result.  I am looking forward to the job ahead.

For now:  that’s a wrap.

Be Happy.  Be Well.  Be.

When I returned from my last trip to London I made the decision to change how I was balancing (or perhaps NOT balancing) my personal life.  The work world is all encompassing… that has not changed… but the balance was off in my personal world.  I wasn’t giving myself enough of what I needed to quantify the reason I am here on this planet.  Sometimes I believe I forget that is important…. and I just let the days pass by.

It dawned on me that I not only needed to balance work with personal … but I needed to balance my personal as well.  I know that sounds confusing… but the fact is that one can be balanced if they leave the workplace and just go home and hibernate… but for me that is not (nor never was) the complete picture.  I need to make sure that I am out and involved with the world in order to maintain the identity that is proper and real  for the path that I choose as well as the path that I do not.

For those who have no idea about what I am speaking about… I refer to how we can pigeon-hole ourselves into believing that there is an identity in who we are based only on what we do for a living.  For me… there is so much more.  I like to use my left and right brain.  I like to create as well as keep order.  I like to listen as well as to speak.  I am adamant that the world is easier and better when I give of myself and return what has been afforded me.  There is a whole philosophy that I have learned and in some periods of my life, forgotten.

But in the turmoil of my own dissatisfaction with what I saw myself becoming in 2009… I made the commitment to make sure that changed.

Change takes time and often there is very little to see in result.  In this day and age it is not unusual for a soul to want to see something instantly… or they may decide without the proper evidence that the process is not working.  Although I have only been on this part of my path for a couple of months I am willing to believe that the calm I am feeling is a direct result of the changes I have committed to.

I shall remind myself of this when the next pothole appears.

Be Happy.  Be Well. Be.

So how does one draw a map to the future?

The first suggestion would be to use a pencil.  Decisions based on emotion with a touch of intellect and hopefully a dollop of experience will tend to evolve, develop and sometimes change completely.  One thing I want to be sure I don’t do is to put on a pair of blinders in the assessment of where I have been and where it is I *think* I should be going in the time ahead.  In other words… I may think I know what I want but the chances are that there is something I am not (or possibly would not) consider in advance.  It is actually very interesting to note that many of the things that I hold dear to me now (or have enjoyed the experience of in the past) were not something I would have considered for myself.  Some I may have definitely NOT considered.  That is why I must draw carefully and be able to erase.  If I don’t add something out of fear, the unknown or some form of pre-judgment I am possibly illustrating an incomplete picture of the future.  Room must always be available for the things one does not expect.

I could easily say that 2009 was a troubling year for me.  In some ways it was.  I know it was a time of internal struggles and aggressive desires for change and growth.  I dealt with a lot of stresses and at times began to wonder if my health was in trouble because I was not dealing with certain situations in the proper ways.  Even sitting here tonight I know that there are things I want to do and be… and pieces of my puzzle that I want to change or completely let go of.  I don’t have the answers as to how I will accomplish these things but I do have the willingness and the platform to question, dissect, research, dip in my toes and learn to my hearts content.

I could also look favorably at 2009 because no matter what I may have set up for myself in terms of the illustration from a year ago, I have grown in leaps and bounds.  I am a different person and I would expect nothing less from a soul that wants to continue walking UP on the path and not backwards or sideways (although either / or may be the proper destination in order to make the changes that will be a part of the path that I am walking towards…)

In 2010 I have learned more about myself.  I have strengthened some key relationships and opened up myself to be a better person in them all.  I have taken down my walls effectively allowing new people in and now I await the cues for stronger and deeper relationships with them and others in the year to come.

In 2009 I spent a lot of time doing what I love the most.  I traveled to London, Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, Munich, Cannes, back to London, to New York, Sydney & Melbourne Australia, back to New York and, now, I am back in London for the THIRD time in a year.  This is nothing to complain about.  I am honored and I am grateful for the opportunity to be seeing the world I live in.  I hope and believe that the year ahead will offer me similar and possibly more opportunity.  I am illustrating out on the map and I will set no expectation.

As I walk through this wonderful town this time around, however, I have seen something in myself that I am not sure I thought I would get to with my travels.  The next time I am in London I would love more than anything to share it with someone.  I have traveled here extensively on my own and I know this place upside and down.  It would be awesome as a part of my new year of adventure to be able to find the right person who really wants to share it the way I do and have them go along for the ride.

Seems plausible.  I have my candidates in mind.

All I know is that 2010 is going to offer up a whole new destiny for me.  I don’t know entirely what that means or what it holds… but intuitively and innately I know.  My assessment of what is to come is built in trust.  I trust myself.  I trust my future.  I trust my path.

And I look forward to it all.

Be Happy.  Be Well.  Be.

Throughout the years I have learned that some of the most puzzling situations, moments and periods in my life have been the most amazing learning experiences… and that once I am on the other side and I can see them for what they are… added value, growth, maturity and a deeper, more rewarding level of living.

What can be troubling to varying degrees while learning, however, is the odd rules, the strange and baffling text books, the eccentric and sometimes ethics challenged teachers and the many, many idiosyncrasies that can leave a student frustrated and scratching their head wondering what the hell the lesson is supposed to mean.

I have known for years that the journey is part (or sometimes the entirety) of the lesson.  To take any situation that doesn’t feel comfortable and walk away means only that the lesson has not been completed.  If I do not experience the entire ‘course’ I am destined to find myself in the same (or similar) classroom at some point a little further down my path in order to finish it.

But some days are troubling.  As a raw emotional being I can only question what it is that I am doing which would have resulted with the lesson in the first place.  Some days I wonder why I am taking the class at all.  Do I need it?  Is it an elective course or is this required to gain credit for the eventual graduation?  Unfortunately I have discovered part of the lesson is the questions that I ask about the lesson…

But even difficult classes have their promising moments.  Every now and again there is a shining moment where a breakthrough may be made.  Sometimes I feel that I am on top of the world whether or not this is the point where the class and the lesson are completed and the next level of life lesson begins.  All of the lessons I have experienced thus far have been vital and as such I am grateful in hindsight to have had the opportunity to have been there to learn them.  Without them I would not be to the level of life education that I have reached.  I look forward vigorously to the lessons I have yet to learn… (but not always to the classroom experience provided to learn them.)

Today I am reflective.  I don’t mind all the learning but wouldn’t it be nice to take a break from it all?  Does anyone really know how hard it is for an intense Pisces to truly turn off his head?  Not an easy task.

Fortunately I have London.  Days away.   And this is one of the primary reasons I keep going back to the class in the first place.

Be Happy.  Be Well. Be.

I kid.  Actually patience is a practical practice in diversion and the perpetual classroom for living in the moment.  For most, nay… many… patience is not something to be struggled with, but instead the default programming.  For others it is a toil in existence and often a losing battle.

For me it is a study in awareness and an understanding within myself.  It becomes about the spiritual balance I cultivate for daily activity and is lost when that balance is not evident.  I am a patient man in the majority of my daily activity and thought… but like an occasional set of keys, patience can be lost.

…but, thus far,  never lost for good.

I remember a time in my early sobriety when I had a sponsor who thought it wise to advise me to “pray for patience.”  Night after night I did what I was told and got on my knees to ask my higher power for the patience that I was instructed to pray for.

Be careful what you ask for.

It was back then that a key was learned for me.  Why pray for patience when the only result would be to experience a world that requires it?  That was not the answer (nor for that matter was the praying but that is another blog entirely…)

The answer has become not to look for patience… but instead to look for peace.  No patience is required in a peaceful place.  Acceptance really is the answer to all our problems.  Granted… some days (and things) are FAR easier to be accepting about…  and somewhere in between the understanding acceptance provides and the awareness and ability to maneuver through the tricks and surprises of a normal life (and what we believe is not what we want to happen) lies a happy land that doesn’t require patience.

My life has been one big expectation for a very long time.  I don’t always live by the rules I have set for myself and I have not been tolerant of the world around me as I built the plans, hopes and frustrated goals far out ahead on a path that was not yet clear… or necessarily mine.  This doesn’t mean that I am not going to walk down a path that provides any of these pieces of the dream… but the fact must always remain that the moment is most important.  Where I am and what I am doing holds valuable clues and steps towards where I want to be.  When I get there, eventually, I will need to fall back on those clues and steps.  If it seems like I am not in the moment and I want to be somewhere that I am not it is time to remember that… patience is a virtue.

Be Happy.  Be Well.  Be.

Nothing concrete to report quite yet… but I know what I know.

We all know that change is constant.  Where we are… what we think… what we do and know… it is all constantly in flux.  Even through the routines of our day the changes are everywhere.  New people, new challenges, new knowledge, new hopes and fears…

…so why then do you suppose I have spent so much time in my life these days craving a change in my life?  Is it somehow negligent that I don’t recognize the advantages of where I am and the changes that are already occurring?  Isn’t it true that to look for change is to not experience the moments you are in?

They say that you should be careful what you wish for.

I have often pondered the outcome of a grand desire for change.  Looking for a major shift in one’s life might best be done with a bit more of a specific goal in mind.  To put out to the universe that you would REALLY like a change could give you a loss that you would regret.  The last thing you want a major change to do to you is put you in a position to want another major change… or worse yet… to go back to where you were when you were wishing the last one.

Then, of course, there are the specific requests for change that don’t necessarily turn out the way we grandly envision.  Let’s face it… we are architects in spirit… in speech… and with the written word…. but can I actually accurately plot completely what each change will entail?  If I could I probably wouldn’t have waited until this point in my life to do such a thing.  I’d be there deciding what change I wanted next and just doing it.

So why not just do that?  Why not be specific and illustrate the changes step by step?  We have choice.  Most any change that is desired can be realized with the gumption of simply taking the appropriate step in the general direction of whatever it is that you want to change.  Sure, there are going to be consequences… whether positive or negative.  There is never an action without a reaction, never a “test” without a result.  Is life worth the risks that we take or should we simply sit back and wait for the results that we want to experience without the dangerous actions that might be required?

My life has changed so many times I cannot even count them all.  In some instances the change was so monstrous that I would not recognize the person  I was prior to it having happened.  In others the changes have been subtle and nuanced… like maturity or recognition.  All of  it was exciting and revealing, the good and the bad.  Some of it was forced upon me without invitation and the most exciting has been the leaps of faith and honest adventure into the future that I have taken on several occasions in the past.  They all worked, whether instantly or in hindsight.  They all took me to new levels of being and happiness… even if some of the route was lined with fears of failure.

I wouldn’t “change” a thing.

So am I changing right now?  Yes… intensely.  I am seeing the world that has been routine for me morphing into something entirely different that isn’t necessarily something I want to commit to.  I know from experience that bold moves are not my answer in this sort of situation.  But I also know from experience that I am to trust my gut and the fact my gut is screaming is that if there is change thrust upon you it is not such a far cry to see it as the point in a path that an “out” can be achieved or pursued.  If perhaps everything that I have been doing is going to be shifted it would be more advantageous and personally exciting to start over with something completely new rather than going back to the drawing board where I currently sit.  It is not a statement of failure or of giving up…  not by a long shot.  The fact is that everything I have been and done in this situation has been successful.  Sometimes, however, success is not a design for decision… especially when the decisions are being made by those who haven’t necessarily made that success in the first place.

My life IS changing.  I have made a decision.  2010 is going to be a ride.  A roller coaster?  A speed boat?  A convertible on a beautiful day?  A nice long plane trip?  Time will tell what the path has in store.  What I do know is that having made this shift of choice within my own psyche is providing me with the happiness that we always seem to be chasing.  I expect that there will be fear splashed in for that reminder of being human.

I’m ready.

Be Happy.  Be Well.  Be…That

So what brought this on? Well… the most common sense path for me towards happiness is the knowledge that my life is a classroom. I have always been a student with a desire to retain and excel. On the days that I am learning, growing, achieving and creating I am alive and the “trudging” is nowhere near noticeable. On the days that I am stagnant or held back it becomes obvious that I am potentially “stuck in the mud.”

That would be what I define as “trudging.” An arduous and difficult slower moving progression towards a goal or destination. Right?

I have always had this image of trudging as a chore. I picture thick mud and army boots trying to push through and sometimes becoming stuck. This, to me, is an obvious image of struggle and hardship that “trudge” would seem to paint. But then I ask myself why trudging should be a negative? Life is a path we walk through. Hopefully the path is clear more than it is not. Definitely there are forks in our road and sometimes there are complete blocks or detours. But no matter what it is that happens to us on the journey we are proceeding in some direction. Each direction is for a purpose and every step is a guided and important lesson to something that has been or will be… IF we are paying attention.

Some days the classroom gives me clear direction and the path is brightly lit. I know where I am going and I am rather happy to be making that journey. It seems obvious and positive and obvious can provide a sense of accomplishment, faith, incentive and sometimes a touch of adrenalin. These are the days where the happiness goal is not one that would need to be sought…. why seek when you are already there? Wouldn’t that mean one was not living in the moment (often a stellar recipe for the happiness goal in and of itself…)?

So it is the days when the conscious or unconscious mind is telling me that I am NOT happy that I am finding myself looking up a darker and slightly more confusing path. I will step cautiously and guide my way through weeds and subterfuge because I want to make my way back to that happily lit path that is most comfortable. THIS could be a defined moment of “trudging” as well as many other scenarios… losses of faith or feelings of depression or that aforementioned stagnancy that tends to tell a tired mind that there is nothing that can be done.

But sometimes that trudging can be the most productive of my growth periods. Sometimes it is the best and most prolific sort of classroom. Who said that life was easy? Who said the path would be that gorgeous yellow brick road? Why wouldn’t the challenges and stop signs that inhabit and line every path out there be the places that I can learn the most.

Then it occurred to me… that this is exactly what has happened for me in many of my previous chapters. Each time the path got difficult and the journey felt like the boots were stuck in the mud… I found myself in re-direction and change that only helped to guide me towards the better direction on the path. Invariably I found my yellow brick road once again and each time there was different and better scenery to look at. It has become obvious to me that my path evolves as much as I allow myself to evolve. What I see as the destination today may not necessarily be the best place for me to go. If I allow myself the willingness to stop and review from time to time… taking in all the signs and messages that I see and hear along the way I am going to realize that the destination is revealed, like puzzle pieces or a treasure hunt… slowly and in their own time.

So although I would hardly say that I am in the mud these days… (although I am also not currently wearing the comfortable fluffy slippers either) I am doing a bit of trudging as I realize that I am in a place in my path where some destination options are starting to reveal themselves. I don’t see them all yet but I know they are there. For me it is important to make sure that I wait until everything at this juncture is in full view and then evaluate for as long as it is necessary to make the choice of which extension on the path to follow.

And there are no “wrong” choices. Just consequences to decisions… both good and bad.

Whatever the path will provide I am excited and genuinely electric about the possibility. Trudging or gliding effortlessly I am here for the ride and the lessons that will accompany.

Be Happy. Be Well. Be.

Tonight I had a very pleasant evening of fellowship and correct thinking. This is not so hard to come by… and often is done in my world by writing out the path to a better solution within blog passages and journal entries. Where I have discovered that my writing is always going to be my top and most effective means of therapy and communication (both inwardly and to the world,) I am not at all opposed to re-learning some of the skills I have been taught in the past in order to better situate myself for the next chapter of my life.

My path is like anyone elses. Some days I walk along and it is lined with trees and flowers. I can smile and I can feel the sense of accomplishment and pride. Other days I am out of sorts… I am distressed or in dis-ease. I am hungry, angry, lonely or tired. The path feels like mud and I can either be stuck or moving painfully slow. It is as if the path is blocked… a shield, a door, a barrier. But it is, as I learn over and over again, only as temporary as I choose it to be.

Choice, as I have discovered is my friend and my enemy. With it I am able to do the things I would like to do… and be the person I want to be. Without it I can feel trapped or imprisoned… thwarted and victimized. For the most part I have learned that I am the one choosing the latter. Rarely, if ever, it would seem, am I actually without choice. What I am actually experiencing is the inability to act upon a choice that I may want to make. In other words… I can choose to do something but that doesn’t mean it is going to be done. I can choose right now to move to London but the frustration or aforementioned ill feelings disguised as a lack of choice are actually my human “inability” to follow through on the choice that I would like to make. It is better stated that I am not actually making a choice if I am not following through… so the feelings of frustration are about that old cement shoe: FEAR.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with acceptance? Pretty much everything, the way I see it.

If I am in acceptance of the world around me.. the way that things “are,” the place that I may be and the pieces of the puzzle that are causing me any sign of the dis-ease that disguises itself as problems and drama.. is no longer given the priority it can demand. The line says: Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. It would be an easy choice to take the acceptance each day, would it not?

Although life is not that simple, it isn’t as “difficult” as it sometimes can be made out to be either. The fact that I relearn again and again is that I can be my own worst enemy. I would tend to believe that this is not my infliction alone, but it is my experience to share and grow from. In the amount of self-examination and thinking I do it is always rewarding to see results. When I woke up today I knew that a choice had to be made and because I knew of my inability to know what that choice should be I have found constant struggle. Suddenly remembering that the acceptance of my world AS IS is the form of surrender that I want to do each morning and evening… I felt that I could breathe and allow the choices to reveal themselves when the time is right. I accepted the results that would come as opposed to needing to create the results myself… thus eliminating the need to “choose”… for now.

If a choice is to be made mine will be acceptance. My choice tomorrow will be the same. This is the renewed mantra for the surrender that is necessary for me to make sure that my goal to live each day as a happy man is achieved. I accept the results… and stay out of them. I accept that I will more than likely stumble, fall and need to pull myself up again. I accept that I am human and that some of the moments that are not “happy” will only provide me with the balance and education to enhance the moments that are. I accept that I will need to be patient and aware for those moments.

I accept it all.

Be Happy. Be Well. Be.