Enjoy More Life this Year

 We are beginning a new year, and this year is going to be full of life.

Life is about more life. For me, more life needs to be more about finding joy in life.

Life is enjoyable, but I didn't always feel this way. Before, I felt like life was something that happened to me. Life rarely seemed to go my way. When it did, it felt like luck, and a majority of the time, I was unlucky. Only recently have I started understanding life and genuinely believing in its beauty and magic.

As children, it easy to see why life is so wonderful. As we grow, we lose sight of what makes life so beautiful in every moment. We only cut out chunks of time to indulge in the beauty of life. We go to a movie, museum, or park now and again; Spending the rest of our time far too busy to enjoy anything thoroughly. Through our parents and peers, we learned the severity of life. We learned that there is a way we must live life. We are children until a particular age, we get older and playing becomes an activity for kids. We are convinced life is not a joke, and if we don't take it seriously, we will fail. Death is the ultimate form of failure.

I could write a whole book on the ideas and beliefs that I've encountered throughout life that makes it harder to enjoy life to the fullest. Television, parent, and peers have programmed these fears and thoughts in us from childhood. Throughout life, our peers tend to reinforce these beliefs. These ideals operate from deep within our subconscious, so changing them is very difficult.  I've been working to change these ideas in myself for over a year. Yet, I find myself still sliding back into an unhappy mindset if I ignore my thoughts. 

There is no secret to enjoying life. We all know how to enjoy life. But forgetting to enjoy life is simple these days. These days I want every moment of my life because I know that I set the course for my life. I live in the present and use the present to guide my life through the path I've chosen. Most importantly, I enjoy every moment because I know that everything I experience on this course is for my benefit, even the nearly unbearable moments.

Living in the present.

Making plans for our future is essential, and so is frequently check our progress, so we know we are heading in the right direction. But it is also vital that we realize life happens in the present moment.

It gets easy to forget about the present moment. All of us have moments where we can't stop worrying about an upcoming event. 

It becomes all we focus on until the event comes and passes. 

If we tried to recall the days leading up to the event, we might not remember much of those days because we weren't fully aware of the present moment those days. We were too focused on the upcoming event. If we can learn to keep ourselves in the Present moment more often, we'll find that life is lovely. 

Take control of your life

Events seem to be coming and going so much faster these days, and it doesn't take much for us to feel like life is entirely out of control. But life doesn't happen to us; it happens because of us. We're not victims of the whim of life. We are not like leaves floating on the river of life. We are the river of life itself. We are the water flowing over, around, through, and under everything in its path. Unstoppable! If we can't find a way, we will make a way.

Take the good with the bad

I believe we receive what we believe. A roadblock that kept me from thoroughly enjoying life was the belief that life should be a constant stream of happy events, and if it isn't, then we're doing something wrong, or something is wrong with us or our life.

Light has no meaning without dark. Good doesn't exist without evil. If we never experienced unpleasing moments, we couldn't understand how good, pleasing moments are. I used the words "pleasing" and "unpleasing" rather than "good" or "bad" because we choose what we consider to be "good" or "bad." Just because a moment is unpleasing doesn't mean it has to be a bad moment. Next time our ice cream falls off our cone and hits the dirt, instead of thinking about the terrible loss, we should choose to think about the empty calories we won't be eating or the ants that will benefit from it.  

To fully enjoy life, we need to enjoy the happy moments and the not so happy moments together. Love it all! All of this is life. Life is art, science, and love. Every moment we go through in our life is for us to grow and learn. When we start to trust that everything is working in our favor, all worry disappears. 

Life is what we make it. If we choose to love life, set our course, live in the moment, and learn how to view everything in our favor. Life becomes a story, and we are the author. We need to take our pen back, write adventures we want to be in, and live more life.