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I used to think that once I got my own place, found the right person, finished school and got the right job, life would start.

I set goals for myself and once I achieve them I quickly turn to myself and say “Ok! Now what?”
I finished school… Ok. Now what?
I found a partner whom I love… Ok. Now what?
I have a nice apartment… Ok. Now what?

There is always this sense of having to do more. Get more. Accomplish more.

Accomplishing my tasks gives me a sense of fulfillment, which is great, but this sense only lasts temporarily and soon enough I am asking myself “now what?” again.

Then I finally realized something profound. I realized that life is here. Life is now.

Life does not start when I accomplish something; It starts when I take my first breath and it will end when I take my last.

I have arrived. I am here and this moment is my life.

I don’t need anything else. I am complete.
In this moment I am whole. There is nothing that I can accomplish to make me more complete because everything that I am, I am when I just breath.

I realized that I am not my name. I am not my car. I am not my house. I am not my possessions. I am not my education. I am not my achievements.
All these things play their function in our world — but when I derive my sense of self from them, I will always feel at lack. I will always feel the need to accomplish more because anything external to me is subject to time and change.
When I rest in the knowledge that “I AM” and my being is sufficient, I no longer need to seek fulfillment in things or in titles because I already am fulfilled.

My life can express itself through different experiences, but it’s not the experiences that define my life. My life defines itself through its presence.

Sometimes I still get lost and captured by identifying myself with the external world and achieving in order to feel at ease and accomplished – but the more I practice just being present the more I realize I am whole now.

I am free now.
I am at peace now.
I am enough now.
Life will not start when I achieve a goal – life IS and will continue to BE here and now.

There is so much to learn and so much information in the outside world that even if I spent my whole life studying it all I would still be left with questions. Sometimes I wonder “what’s the point of all this?”
Is there something I am supposed to be learning or seeing by being here and now or is this all some big accident without any purpose at all?

My best friend tells me that what matters is right now and what we make of right now.

Well, right now I am at work.
At a boring job I have spent the last 8 years of my life devoting to. I much rather be at a beach instead. But I am not. I choose to be here.

Why do I choose to stay at a job that I am unhappy with rather than go live by the beach as I wish?
Well. 1) I don’t have the courage to and 2) I don’t have the money to.
How will I live if I just take my bags and go?
Not to mention all the bills that just won’t disappear!!!!
Excuses, excuses.
I am a wimp. That is the truth.
I am too afraid to take life on by the balls.

But in the midst of all of my choices and life experiences, deep down I get a feeling that somehow something beautiful will come out of all this.
Maybe right now I don’t exactly understand WHY I am sitting here at this boring ass job and WHY life has brought me to writing this — but somehow, I feel that one day I will.

Sometimes I feel something great is going to come. I don’t know what or when or how… I just feel I belong to something great and I am waiting to see what that is.

Is there more to life than this?
I can’t seem to answer “no.”
I believe the answer is YES! YES THERE IS!

But where?

Well, that’s a subject for another time.

Life is Now

Is There More to Life than This?