Winsome Bella says about herself that she is “no longer a believer in that the best is yet to be.” You, Bella, qualify this by saying that the best “is here and now”. I can’t underwrite either. But it sure set me thinking.
What is “the best” in anyone’s life? It so varies from each phase, moment to moment. Which examples to illustrate my point to choose from? Let’s take something simple: One moment you fervently pray that you are not pregnant, some years down the line you pray you are.
Another example, and I lost a friend over this: She married young, had two daughters and (by her own admission) had the most terrific sex with her husband when they were in the throws of divorce. Something I can’t fathom but that’s another subject. She married again, a sort of hippy mellow yellow type, kind to her children and everyone else. Naturally, one can be too yellow mellow a man. So that petered out. We now have Elizabeth Taylor in the making: Wedding number three. And that’s where she blew it (for me) big time: On her wedding invitation she wrote “THIRD TIME LUCKY”. (Remember Bella’s “the best yet to come”): Third time lucky? Come again? I wrote back to her, scathingly, that ‘third time LUCKY’ not only negating her previous life but an insult to the two men she had committed herself to before. An insult. And, yes, I didn’t attend the wedding (which according to her brother (FOS) was a long drawn out tedious affair with so many poems, readings and swearing of ever lasting love it left everyone wishing for a glass of champagne before nodding off). Third time lucky. What I am trying to say – in a rather cumbersome way and where Bella comes in again: Yes, we live in the here and now. And in the NOW let us not demean that which went on before.
All I know: Life is not one big parcel. It’s many little boxes. You may feel not so good in one part of your life, deliriously happy in another. At the same time. Happens to me every day.
U
I always find it remarkable how much time people do spend in the past or in the future. Both are important places to visit. The past can give us lessons from which to draw as we live out the present; the future is where we can dream of going and doing, guiding us as we live out the present. The problem is, for most, we forget that we must live out in the present moment. There is no guarantee we will live beyond the current breath we’ve just taken in, nor can we change anything in that past, despite so much heartache trying to do so.
Looking at the past is a tricky venture. Some only see the negatives and overlook the joys (as in the case of the woman above desperately seeking a lucky third time) while others look so sentimentally at the few joys, and forget the hardship endured to experience those joys. Spend too much time either hating or loving that past, and you’ll wake up to realize so much of the day is gone. So too with dreaming about tomorrow.
So, my advice is to not let too much of yesterday or tomorrow take up too much of today. Live and be! (Note present tense)
And after reviewing my sappy, slef-help philosophy, I don’t think I’ll quit my day job anytime soon… Perhaps you can file my comment under the tag “Pretentious Shit.”
Comment by Phil — September 5, 2012 @ 14:21 |
You may be ambitious, Phil, but don’t set your sights too high: I’d never file you under ‘Pretentious Shit’.
Pretentious shit is only for people who stuff mushrooms and bone a chicken (skin intact), like myself.
I tend to pick the happy raisins out of my past cakes. And I am perfectly ‘happy’, make that acknowledge, that some souffles of my life sunk, indeed the odd cake burnt to a cinder because I went to sleep at the wrong moment (lesson here being: Do not bake cakes in the middle of the night – not even foolproof ones).
Re-reading your comment: Wise words indeed, Phil. However, if there is one thing about “future” is that future implies ‘hope’. And, even in our happiest moments and memories, we are nothing without hope. Even if, like me, you haven’t got a clue what you are hoping for. To play it safe: Nothing.
Hoping to draw my next breath.
U
Comment by Ursula — September 5, 2012 @ 14:52 |
Good points, Phil and Ursula. I have spent a heck of a lot of time craning my neck to peer backward, only to swing it about abruptly and try to get up high enough to peer over whatever blocks the view ahead. Which resulted in a very bad pain in my neck. Plus a tendency to long for what was and fear what might be. Hence my mini manifesto.
I still may spend too much time appreciating and reviewing the past but I have successfully given up lots of my worrying about the future. That may be because at my age, unless I should live extraordinarily long, I have more years behind me than ahead of me. Plenty of time to review but less time to anticipate. If I could eyeball the here and now world through the lens of past and future, I might come out ahead but then again my eyeball philosophy sounds quite like looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, eh?
Comment by winsomebella — September 5, 2012 @ 17:39 |
Here’s what I think: every thing and every one that happened to me in the past had a part to play in making me who I am today. Since I rather like who I am today, I harbor no regrets about any of it. Indeed, I’m grateful for all that went before. As for the future, well, who knows? Not me. My crystal ball cracked when I moved out of the house after my separation…;)
Comment by Lorna's Voice — September 5, 2012 @ 18:43 |
I think along similar lines. Most regrets about the past are outweighed by the fact that that life led to two children and the way they are now.
As for the future – there have already been some excellent times, so I’m not sure they’ll be bettered. But I’m keen to give it a go and even if they aren’t, there’ll still be some good times. I’m up for that.
Comment by blackwatertown — September 13, 2012 @ 22:27 |
Here, here!
Comment by Lorna's Voice — September 13, 2012 @ 23:00 |
There are times when I sure hope the best is yet to be. What if I’ve already had it? What if it’s all down hill from here? Yikes!
Then there are times when I think I’m pretty lucky – when I KNOW I’m pretty lucky. And those are the best times of all.
Comment by writingfeemail — September 6, 2012 @ 01:13 |
I never thought that the best will not come. Now that it has come, I am not surprised. My best has just arrived. After thirteen years of living my life for others, I have been set free. I will now start the process of changing my life to enable me to do the many things that have been on hold for those thirteen years.
Comment by rummuser — September 8, 2012 @ 10:59 |
Indeed, Ramana, you have been set free. And I am happy for you. Relieved.
As your friends left their well worn expressions of – and no doubt heartfelt – condolences, I tried to, thinly veiled, celebrate an end and a new beginning for you. I am glad you took it in that spirit.
Wishing you all the best “starting the process of changing” your life. You may even dance.
Ursula
Comment by Ursula — September 8, 2012 @ 12:39 |