Well, it’s been about a month since my last blog. Is there a reason for the delay? Kind of.
I guess for me, I want to put something good out. I want to challenge people to think deeper about their own lives. I want to encourage people to think differently. These blogs are mainly for me, but in a lot of ways, they are also for those who read them. They are thoughts that pop into my mind, and I think, “Yeah, that would be a good blog to encourage people.”
With that, I hope this blog speaks to you. It’s a thought that came to my mind this week.
“You know, it’s funny. A fish is swimming around in the ocean, and he meets an older fish. The young fish says, ‘I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.’ ‘The ocean?’ says the older fish. ‘That’s what you’re in right now.’ ‘This?’ says the young fish. ‘This is water. What I want is the ocean.’”
This is a quote from the Pixar movie Soul. It’s been on my mind a lot lately. That movie, the concepts that quote and the movie portray, and I guess simply life itself.
At 29, I find myself in this constant state of asking, “Am I behind?”
I see other people achieving things like buying their own homes, getting high-ranking promotions within their careers, getting married, having kids, and so on. Meanwhile, I am here… existing in my own little world.
It’s not a bad thing. But there are parts of me that constantly wonder why some of these moments haven’t happened for me yet. Why haven’t I gotten there? Why don’t I have that yet? Am I behind?
The answer is no. I have to remind myself of that constantly. Long story short, when those thoughts pop into our minds, I think they are both a lie and a reflection of the human heart. We are constantly learning how to be content with where we are right now. It’s natural for us to always want something else. We want what’s next. We want the next accomplishment, the next milestone, the next chapter. We look at someone else’s life and think, “I want that.” But that’s also when we miss the blessings of what’s happening right now.
We miss the beauty of the moment.
And once that moment is gone, we will never get it back.
Everything in life is temporary. The season you are in right now is temporary. The people around you right now are temporary. The circumstances you are living in right now are temporary. So learning to be present in the moment and mindful of the blessings around us is important. It’s checking your heart and your soul and learning to recognize that there is beauty in the right now. Yes, even if the right now is something small like a mustard seed.
One of the things that comes to my mind when I think about blessings being found in the moment is the constant reminder to soak in the now with the people we love, whether that’s friends or family. Far too often, time passes. People get older. Life happens. And before we know it, a moment that we thought would always be there becomes a memory. There are a lot of things I wish I could have done in my life so far. One of those things is meeting my friend Taylor in person. I never had that honor, and that’s okay. I still consider the moments of being his friend a true blessing, and I really am thankful for those years I got to walk through his cancer diagnosis and battle with him from a distance.
I could focus on what I didn’t get. I could focus on the fact that we never got to meet in person. But why would I let the one thing I didn’t get overshadow the blessing of what I did get? I got to know him. I got to call him my friend. I got to walk alongside him through one of the hardest seasons of his life. And I got memories that I will carry with me for the rest of mine.
Maybe that’s part of what “Soul” was trying to remind us of. Sometimes we spend so much time searching for what we think our life is supposed to be that we forget to look at the life we are already living. We are so focused on finding the ocean that we forget we’re already swimming in it.
Maybe the blessing isn’t always in what’s coming next. Maybe sometimes, the blessing is simply realizing what’s already here.
These truly are the Golden Days that we cannot get back.
Try to frame your mindset around being in the now, even if you are tired, burnt out, or drifting through the wind like a plastic bag wanting to start again (for my Katy Perry fans).
Life is fast. I can guarantee you, I never thought the flash from 18 to 29 would be a blink of an eye, but here we are. It was quick, and lots of life has happened since.
There will always be something to look forward to. There will always be another goal, another milestone, another thing we think will finally make us feel like we have “made it.” But if we spend our entire lives waiting for the next thing, we might wake up one day and realize we missed the life that was happening while we were waiting.
So maybe the challenge is to stop for a moment.
Look around.
Look at the people sitting next to you. Look at the friends who have stuck around. Look at your family. Look at the things you have accomplished that you once prayed for. Look at the little moments that probably don’t feel significant right now but might become some of the memories you cherish most someday.
You might not be where you thought you would be at 29. Maybe you aren’t where you thought you would be at 35, 45, or 65 either. But that doesn’t mean you’re behind.
You’re here.
You’re living.
You’re in the ocean.
And that’s more than enough.
I don’t know what the next chapter of my life will look like. But I don’t want to spend so much time wondering when those things will happen that I forget to appreciate what is happening right now. Because one day, I might look back at 29 and realize these really were some of the Golden Days. And I don’t want to have spent them wishing I was somewhere else.
So wherever you are right now, take a breath. Look around. Be present. Thank God for the people and blessings in your life, even the small ones.
The ocean you’re looking for might not be somewhere ahead of you.
You might already be swimming in it.
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