Dying Man’sw Daily Journal – Forgetting to live life.

Stress is a killer, we all know that yet what do we really do about it. A certain amount of short term stress in you life is actually a good thing. It can get your motor reved up and get you moving. It is the long term unrelenting stress that I am talking about here. The kind that wears on you, wears you down and will likely eventually kill you. What do we do about it, usually for me anyway it was just accept it as part of life and carry on as best I could What did that attitude bring me, 5 heart attacks and now congestive heart failure. Not a path really anyone wants to take in life.

There are a million potential stressors in life but I think it is safe to say the majority for most come from stressing about work, relationships family/friends or money. This brings to mind the serenity prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change. The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

What is likely the biggest thing we can not change? Other people!! We can’t expect other people to change to fit our expectations of them. They are who they are just as we are who we are. If we try to force or manipulate another into changing to suit our expectations. We are just setting ourselves up for disappointment. It is not fair to the other person or to yourself. We can encourage but we can not force.

So what is it we can change. Ourselves!! Now I am not suggesting we try to change ourselves to meet the expectations of another. Do that and we are dooming ourselves for a life of stress, worry and unhappiness. We must be true to ourselves. while being fair to others. When it comes to ourselves there is not a lot that we can not change in a positive way if we are willing to put in the effort.

What is the biggest and most important thing we can change in ourselves,our attitude. An attitude of gratitude, learn to become grateful for the live we have at this moment. Now that is not to say that we shouldn’t have plans or goals for the future that we are actively working towards. That is good and healthy. It is just we don’t want to be so very focused on the goal we forget to live life while getting there. If we can rid ourselves of the “my life will be so much better when……. thoughts.” Yes at the point we reach that “when” point in our lives things may change,  who knows. It just seems that by the time we reach that magic mile stone in life, it will have already been replaced by our desire our need to reach another. We are just never content. We are so focused on reaching that next on the highway of life that we forget to or are so driven we forget to enjoy the voyage.

For my human mind I seem to need to come up with a physical comparable for my mind to be able to take it in. I often refer to the highway of life. Each of us travel through life with the ultimate destination in mind of reaching Heaven. That is the ultimate destination. We each chose our own path, our own highway to travel on as we strive to reach that common destination.Our live here is a journey,is the journey. Time doesn’t stop or slow down for anyone. Our time on this earth is limited, we only have so many days on that highway. We only have so many days here and there is nothing we can do to change that We don’t get a time out to have a bad day each day, each moment gone by is gone forever.

Today is the youngest you will ever be again in this life time. You have the entire rest of your life laying in front of you. How do you want to spend it.  It really is up to you.