The only time that’s ours to control is here and now.
It’s good to have goals. Plans for the future help drive your life along. An outcome to strive for provides encouragement, potential, and possibility.
However, two opposing forces in modern society challenge this. The first is a deep-seated need for comfort and stability, and industries that emphasize and strive for that. The second is nostalgia for a past that likely never existed and industries that emphasize and strive for that.
“Comfort zone” is a misnomer. It’s really a place of familiarity more than a place of true comfort. Often, comfort zones hold you back, keep you playing small, and prevent you from doing that thing you most desire to do. Creatives tend to be intimately familiar with this.
Learning lessons from the past can help you with choices and decisions in the present, for the future. However, you cannot go back. The lie that things can be returned to “how they were” or “make ‘X’ great again” are based on bullshit. Change is the only constant in the universe, and you can’t undo things. All you can do is make new choices and decisions to do different things.
In any event, both of these forces pull us away from the place where we have any and all control. Here and now.
Be here now
Everyone is of three minds. First, the unconscious mind is automation that keeps your heart beating, lungs breathing, circulatory system circulating, and so on. Second, the subconscious mind is where your beliefs, values, habits, and memories live. Mostly it’s background and comes into the foreground as rote and routine. Third, the conscious mind is your aware mind, present in this moment, and only functions here and now.
The subconscious mind is a sponge. It absorbs what it touches. Unfortunately, that means it takes in all sorts of things that you might not want. That is, until you apply conscious awareness.
Conscious awareness is mindfulness. Mindfulness is active conscious awareness, specifically of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, positive or negative approach, and actions. Via mindfulness, you can actively be here, now.
When you’re present and aware in the now, you can see who, what, where, how, and why you are in stark definition. Then, if something isn’t to your liking, you can make choices and decisions to change it.
By working in the here and now, you can choose to be an active, conscious creator. Or not.
Only in the here and now are you empowered to take what control of your life you can.
If not now, when?
Having goals for the future is a driving force to make, be, and do things. Likewise, the past is a driving force to learn, grow, and change things in motion. The best time to apply this is here and now.
Tomorrow is never guaranteed. The three things in life you can count on are a beginning, middle, and end. Or, simply, birth, life, and death. Life is not meant to just occur and be survived. Human beings are equipped with tremendous creative power that we can uniquely employ to thrive.
Now is the best time to act. Even when you don’t know what that will look like, you can choose to take an approach and do something from your head, heart, and soul that inspires and empowers you.
Regrets often stop creatives from creating. Fear of failure, rejection, and worse, also stays people’s hands. Yet as the ancient Chinese proverb tells us,
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.”
There are always questions about “what if” and “should” that will make you pause. However, there are ALWAYS those questions – whether or not you act. The choice and decision to do or not to do (to be or not to be, even) is yours to make either way.
Want to write a book? Paint a painting? Sculpt a bowl? Crochet a shawl? If not now, when?
Your superpower
The notion that only a select few are real creators is totally bullshit. Everyone has the power of creation within them. Unfortunately, societal expectations coupled with hyper-focusing on the goals for the future or restoring a non-existent past distract most from pursuing their creativity.
Choosing to be an artist full-time can be something of a luxury. But then again, it’s also something of a calling many of us are driven to answer. Your superpower is your empowerment.
What does that even mean? It means that you have the inner power, the ability, the skill, to make choices and decisions for yourself. Everybody can reach deep inside themselves to draw from their thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions to create. But even more than that, from within, you have the power to be who, what, where, how, and why YOU desire to be.
It really is a superpower. But you can only apply it here and now. Why? Because it’s active conscious awareness – mindfulness – that lets you act on your impulse to create and make art of whatever sort lights you up. That opens the way to taking control of your life experience to drive your destiny.
If not now, when will you choose to empower yourself to create whatever song your heart seeks to sing? It’s not selfish to act on that, because creatives drive the world to grow, evolve, and be better – not only for themselves, but for those their creations touch.
Just a little food for thought. Thanks for reading. As I share my creative journey with you every week, please consider this: How are you inspired and empowered to be your own creator, whatever form that takes?
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