I am sure I am not the only one who always gets some good ideas in the shower. Also, I do find the shower a great place to argue with myself, debating on specific topics that I am having mixed feelings about or I am virtually trying to argue with my friend, for example. There is something about that place or the process, something about showering that triggers certain brain receptors makes them produce some interesting ideas and thoughts. I’ve been in the shower this early morning thinking about life. What else can I think at 5 in the morning? I guess that’s all I do, thinking about life.
I was thinking about life and reflecting on the past, as everyone should do. We’ve made it this far, it’s December of 2019 and damn it, this year flew by fast. I have been quite a productive year, in a way; a lot of great momentums were there. I have certainly achieved things that I never was able to on the personal level, health-wise, life-wise and so on. Fuck, I’ve even started my own blog. How great is that? I’ve been running it for about three months now and I enjoy doing it. I will plan to do more writing and more posts as I go along. I hope to get my message across to as many people as I can and to as many people who might find the topics I am talking about relevant and close to their own experiences. I am certainly more organized from the writing perspective now. Posting a new blog post every week or two weeks makes me do the work.
The end of the year is a great time to reflect on past life, on the year passing and think about the future. In the shower this morning I thought about it. I thought about my future and how often did I find myself seeing nothing in there. It’s all kind of dark, there is nothing to be seen there. It almost feels like the light switch has been turned off. I need to find it and turn back on and see what’s out there.
We all live in our lives thinking, planning, hoping for the future. We all desire and truly feel that we all deserve to have a great future. However, worrying about it too much prevents us from living in the present moment. Everything we do is for the future, and who cares about the present, about now. Now is something in a “transition mode.” It is not that important right now, but in the future, everything should be just great. What happens more often than not is that this mentality can go on for a very long time. Life will pass with a blink of an eye and we will still be looking out for something. There is nothing wrong with looking out for something. The problem is to be intentional now, to live every moment of our lives now and enjoy it now. The future is unknown and even for the most well-organized freaks like myself, it is still very much unknown. Things are not that sad and hopeless, though. I do believe that living intentionally a good and mindful life now will keep the future horizons clear from all the garbage and unnecessary bullshit. The future is now. Now is the future. Now is already the past. Shout out to the Minimalists for helping myself and millions of others to live a meaningful and intentional life.
People often say that “life got in the way” when talking about things and plans that never had a chance to be accomplished. This is supposed to mean that those people have lost control over it and just went with the flow. They refused or were not able to manage the change in their lives and to stay on top of their priorities and principals. Things just simply got out of control. This happens to the best of us. We all fall into the same trap. To a certain degree, it is right, to shape your life according to life’s changes and challenges. On the other hand, it is hard to stay on track if there is too much outside noise and destruction affecting how we think and how we live our lives. You will need to learn how to minimize that noise or cancel it altogether, so you could hear what really is important in your life. You will get the clarity in your mind and you will be able to re-establish the focus on your goals and priorities.
It is the last month of the year, and it is the last week of 2019 already, as I am writing this, I look back and say “Where the fuck did the time go?” Even though I was able to structure my priorities and manage my life goals well, or I should say, the best I ever did in my life so far; I was able to accomplish so much more or almost every fucking thing on my 2019 list. Lists do really get me going and do make me accomplish things. This is what I call being goal-oriented. Put your goals on a piece of paper or on the to-do list app or wherever, but have them all out somewhere. Do it multiple times so you can remember everything you’ve wrote you will have to do in the near future. Read and re-read all you wrote from time to time so it registers somewhere in your brain and stays there. And then the time comes, it will reflect back at you and you will recognize the priority and you will act on it. Eventually, you will get it accomplished.
I had my list and my goals for a year ready at least two weeks before the New 2019 Year. More to it, I’ve started working on it at least a week earlier before January 1st. That gave me some head start and made me already being productive before I even had to do anything. And that feeling of accomplishment and going towards my destination, whatever it is, crossing things off my list, reaching out for the new horizons was driving me throughout the entire 2019. And here I am, feeling all accomplished and shit and truly happy. Remember happiness? Where was the last time you were really happy about yourself? I do. I am fucking happy about myself every day. Not to brag about it. Every fucking little thing took a lot of effort to figure out and work on it. But at the end of the day, it was doable. I’ve learned to appreciate each day like it is the last one like I’ve lived it to my fullest like there is nothing I haven’t done or missed.
The most important thing that I’ve learned to do regularly this year, in particular, was setting my priorities right. The lists have something to do with it. The thing is that you really want to know and go after what matters the most. Always choose to complete the priority which is the most important, whatever will have the most impact. Don’t be close-minded and go after the small tasks just to get them out of your way. They don’t really matter as much and have no impact on your life’s quality whatsoever.
Maybe it is the way I was broad-up or maybe it is the way stupid poor people think, which is to hold on to the good stuff, keep them out for some later and unforeseen future. I don’t do that anymore. There is nothing to hold on to the unforeseen future, because I and neither do you, have any fucking clue what will happen to us in the next five minutes. So, how in the fuck are you holding on to all the “good stuff” until the unknown? You might not be around by then. That is a possibility. There is always a possibility of anything. Another beauty about living a meaningful and intentional life is to learn to listen to your body, read your thoughts and coordinate your desires and prioritize your true needs. You live today, right now, and the decisions should be made about the right now. Don’t hold on to your best sweater until Christmas or something. You can wear it now if appropriate if it makes you feel better or if it wears nicely and comfortably. Don’t hold on to it until whenever. This is just stupid, I think. If you learn to listen to yourself and understand your true needs you will get the most out of your life and that intentionality will help you feel more satisfied and mindful about your life and yourself.
Time is everything. Time is all we have. Time is the most precious asset. Not the bank accounts, not the various valuable possessions, not the cars, houses, jewelry or whatever, but the time – the most intangible and so easily missed thing. Some people say that a good watch won’t buy you more time or won’t buy you a better time. I may partially agree with it. I’d say though, that the watch, any watch that keeps time, will help you manage your good and bad times much better and get a better sense of what is going on. For whatever reason, I love watches just the whole concept of timekeeping and a piece of watch that helps keep the better measurement of the time to me is just fascinating. I do own multiple watches and I always manage to get more. I do find that a watch is, even a cheap watch, a great tool to manage and track your time. I do find that different watch makes me feel differently about my life, about what I do, what I feel like when I look at it to see where I am with my life at that moment. Appreciate the good times, and learn for the bad times. Keep track of your time.
Time passes by quietly. Time has no mercy. Time moves quietly. It leaves its marks on things and people which are sometimes pretty rough. If you don’t take care of yourself, you will see it in your reflection later – what has happened to you. Time did it. You did it. Or you didn’t do what you were supposed to do. Or you did it all wrong. Once I realized that I am getting older and that things and life around me change so fast, I just couldn’t remain the same person all the time. I had to move on and change with time. I have to be able to keep up and understand that nothing stays the same and I don’t have to be the same all the time either. There is something good and intriguing about the change. You might not like it first, but then you’ll see that it wasn’t that bad and that you’ve learned something about it. The change will make you think faster, move faster, and adapt to it. We all need to keep adjusting to the changes in our lives and keep striving to become a better person we can be at this time, right now.
With all of that said and written down I will close out 2019 with this post and I will leave this piece of mind here for you, the reader. A lot has been said and there is always so much more to cover and to polish and to go over and to reflect on and analyze and compare against. We all should do a little bit of that in our own lives. My goals for 2020 have been already established and all written down and I am already executing on some of them, as you already might know after ready all this. I am closing out 2019 with a great feeling of accomplishment and great hopes for a much better the new year 2020. I really hope that everything I went through this far will help me get much further in the future. And with an open mind and high hopes for a better life, I am moving on to the next thing, to the next level, to the next new life in the upcoming new year. And I wish you would do the same. It’s about time. Happy New Year!