we do not remember days, we remember moments.

cesare pevase

It’s all moments that come and go so quickly, so hard to hold onto and yet so easy to forget, simultaneously gone yet forever there. The delicate desert or moment before you finally drifted into sleep. These are the moments to grasp onto, to come back to, not the stains that made their way onto your favorite shirt or the crack in your favorite object. There are things one can grasp onto and others that can be let go of, and if you are mindful that both are vying for your attention you might be able to have one without the other.

Our awareness of our surroundings come to be like a headlamp shining through the dark. It shines onto things, a book open on our lap, a video flickering on our phone,  our attention is brought into that area and our life is brought into that moment. Like pointing a lens of a camera at a flower, that is what one sees, that is what comes to mind. At the same time, thoughts arise, sometimes brought out from our environment, sometimes a product of our past or a certain anxiety in the future, either way it too has somehow come into focus. You can linger on it, or simply allow it to dissipate and go away, like moving our attention to another area or space, something else will come to mind. The pink elephant that you could not stop thinking of will go away, but only if you do not feed it. 

In it all, things keep changing.  We become tired or frustrated or anxious about a certain thing or predicament. We forget about the amazing desert or massage and begin to create a guilt associated with it, something that felt wrong on something that just felt so right.  It can become so unbearable that you may as well not be wherever it is you are trying to be or feel at the moment. It is best during those times to pause. To lower your eyes and find your breath, to see that you are the whole universe and that just as day must follow night, the high must follow a low. Since nothing is neither created nor destroyed an equilibrium must find its way into your life, into the situation. Nothing is free, and our energy and our attention does not escape that rule. But with some understanding and practice, you can learn to look at placing your attention on the side of right or light or whatever it is that can move you on with contentment and satisfaction at hand. or something like this….