Forever Ends Today - Grasshopper

Who hasn’t heard a love song pledging one’s love “forever”? One of my favorite songs is what used to be called a “B” side from a group called the Marvelettes. It’s titled, “Forever.”

But experience shows us nothing lasts forever. Everything, like every story, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The key challenge for all of us is where we spend most of our time in this story.

 

People who forever hearken for the past, spend most of their time in the beginning. Those who spend countless hours fearing the future are focused on the end. And it’s my experience that the most satisfaction we get comes from spending time in the middle – Now – not in either version of “then.”

 

“Forever,” though a heartfelt pledge, leads us away from the middle and projects us into times that don’t exist. Those times are in the lands of “was” or “may be.”

 

All of this leads to the question: Who or what deserves your attention and devotion now?

 

You get to that answer when you ask yourself another question: “Where is my attention?”

 

It’s useful to develop the habit of noticing where your attention is. It brings you back to the middle, where life happens.

 

It can certainly be fun revisiting the past or imagining the future, but a steady diet of it is as nutritious as cotton candy, delivering a lot of calories and no substance.

 

If you’re forever escaping to the past or future, you literally have no life. Life happens now.

 

Are you living on “Memory Lane” or “Beyond Boulevard”? If so, it’s time to move and discover a more life-enhancing address: “Middle Way.”

 

All the best,