Eighty percent of success is showing up. ~Woody Allen
Enough. Thank you Mother Nature for making sure our snow pack is the best in many years. Thank you for the powder days and the beautiful white covered mountains against blue skies. Thank you, but that’s enough. It’s March. Time for a slow thaw. The day lilies are peeking out, the trees have buds on them. It’s time for you to go out like a lamb for God’s sake.
OK, I feel better. And I don’t. Complaining only causes more suffering. My own. In the Yoga Sutras, we are offered the wisdom of practicing “Santosha” which is Contentment. A choice to be content with what IS, and what ISN’T moment by moment. Every moment I spend wishing for less snow and more sunshine is simply living in disagreement with reality. As Deborah Adele says, “Discontentment is the illusion that there can be something else in the moment. There isn’t, and there can’t be. The moment is complete.”
It’s a quick reset, to change a mindset from complaining to contentment. A choice. So let me start over. Oh Mother Nature. It’s like this now. I am content, and it’s snowing. I am content, and it’s cold. I am content and have a long list of to-do’s. When we start with I am content, and commit to be that way regardless of what follows, we get to live inside a more peaceful place. We get to show up to the moments of our lives as a person who is content, and not a complainer.
I did some math yesterday, and calculated that today is Day 21,825 of my life. I have been on this planet for 21,825 days. That’s 31,428,000 minutes. 31 million opportunities to choose contentment over complaining. For me, that’s perspective. I want to make the most out of the moments that lie ahead. We can’t audit life. This is the real deal. It’s like this now. I’m showing up. I am content.
Grab your phone and crunch YOUR numbers. Open your journal and write the day in your life in numbers at the top of the page. What will fill the blank page today? How will you show up? I encourage you to choose contentment.
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