Happily Ever After Now
Being satisfied now and later.
“Gimme, Gimme. I need, I need!”
I have always enjoyed creating things. In fact, I was so creative as a child that I frequently got myself in lots of trouble. There was the time that I set fire to the neighbor’s backyard because I had a pack of matches and wanted to use them. Another time I brought home a snapping turtle. Later (and I was old enough to know better), I even threw ground beef on the ceiling in an attempt to mimic a pizza chef I had seen on a cartoon. I patted it out, pretended it was pizza dough and tossed it as high as I could. When my parents came home, they watched in horror as the ground beef came down in big chunks from the ceiling.
Then there was the time I dripped hot candle wax all over the kitchen counters. I was doing an experiment to see how long it would take to use up all the candle. Lucky for me, my parents didn’t take score too soon and ship me off to juvenile hall!
For me, Life provided the raw material that fostered my creativity. I thoroughly enjoyed the process — the ideas, pulling the ingredients together, watching things take shape. Once my creation was complete, I was ready to move on to the next project.
Today, I still love the process of Life. I understand that we all are creating every moment of every day; some of us just don’t realize it. We jump in, do the work we’re told to do, and impatiently wait for our prizes — the dream job, the big house, the fancy car, the perfect partner, you name it. We get especially impatient for situations to resolve themselves. We want it, and we want it NOW!
We have become Creative Consumers moving from goal to goal, manifestation to manifestation, with little or no consideration for the process.
When our desires don’t manifest quickly or when they seem out of reach, we wail: “Life is unfair! Where is it? They have what I want! Why can’t I have it?” “It” represents anything we perceive as lacking in our lives.
This is because we have been taught to focus on the outcome, on what we want. We have become Creative Consumers moving from goal to goal, manifestation to manifestation, with little or no consideration for the process.
“Gimme, Gimme. I need, I need,” as Bill Murray says in the movie What About Bob? What we fail to see is the perfection of each moment. We fail to see Life as it is unfolding, one step at a time, and that our job is to actually celebrate that part of the journey and not just the end result.
In fact, the journey is the most important aspect. Being content with the moment — even enjoying it instead of expecting it to be something different than it is — allows our ride to be smooth, not bumpy, scenic not frantic. This allows all of Life to be delivered straight to our door in perfect timing. Savor the moment? You think? If Life is an ongoing unfolding process, then surely we can at least compromise with a “Happily Ever After Now”?
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