Posts Tagged ‘actions’
Living Consciously
What does it mean to Live Consciously?
For me; to Live Consciously is to act in a way that is in line with who I am and what I wish to accomplish. It’s a self-realisation that what I do now is non-repeatable and is, therefore, to be treated as a single chance to perform an action that will ultimately lead to the results I want. Everything I do cannot be un-done. There is no “do-over”.
How does that effect my daily life?
For the rest of my life, each day will be the same length of time (24hrs). My experience of time is finite. I am going to die sometime. That means every time I do something I didn’t mean to do, that needs fixing up or smoothing over, I am losing time. If I had thought about it first, I could have adjusted my action(s) in such a way as to reduce or avoid having to clean up afterward. Then I would give me more time to do what I want.
So how do you do it?
I been going down this path for a little while and it recently dawned on me that the way to Live Consciously is to practise Living Consciously. I’m gradually replacing the habit of un-conscious living with a more constructive and useful one. There are moments when I sit firmly astride the two though:
Do I really need to have this argument? Am I willing to spend that extra time making up afterwards? Does it really matter if the paper is that shade of blue? Is that really what the argument is about? Or have I just been ignoring her this whole time? Are those shoes new? Was I supposed to say something? Is that what this is all about?
Ultimately there is only forward.
So mean what you do, and do what you mean.
Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ (Flickr).
While secretly reading the internet at work (I had reached my Stupidity limit and needed to take time out) I came across this article about How To Focus On What Truly Matters which is becoming more and more important to me these days. The clarity of the announcement moment has worn off slightly and while I still view the world differently, I realise that my actions have not changed all that much.
I am able to choose what is important to me right now and that is a good thing, but I haven’t put any thought into what my life will be like in 10 years.
In 10 years time, I’ll have a 9 year old! Maybe an 8 year old too!
The gravity of the situation is only now starting to sink in. The joy and excitement too.
It feels strange to be making decisions about another person’s life when I have only recently learned how to do it for myself though. So, for the next week, I will spend the first 30 minutes of each day thinking about what truly matters and then do something about it. I’ll post up the results and the end of the week and revise them monthly, to keep things current.
It seems like the least I can do for my kid(s).
Image by Chris Runoff (Flickr).
