Help Your Self

I started this year with no resolutions. That is not exactly true. My continued resolution is to live in the present moment. To be more precise, in the present breath.

This morning during my semi regular yoga practice, the instructor, Mary Kay told us that all of us are right where we need to be at this present moment. I have to tell you that it took me out the the present moment because for once I really understood what it meant, not what I thought it meant for all these years.

I have heard that so many times. “You are right where you need to be.” Who hasn’t heard that this wanker bollocks in this “new age pseudo spiritual environment’ we live in? But I always thought it meant I was in my wanker relationship, bringing the wanker out in myself and my wanker because I was supposed to be.

Hum Drum.

Where did I pick up fatalism? Does it come with fries and a coke at McDonald’s? This post consumer world in which we live drives us to want or apparently “need’ many things. Everything is predetermined? Is that a Baptist philosophy that has permeated our society. Without realizing it are we subconsciously believing either chosen or we aren’t?

If we aren’t lets eat!

I ponder if this is a generational phenomena or is it a Gen X thing? We grew up hearing about how grungy everything was.  Reality Bites and all that. Did we believe it? Are we the ones on Oprah eating out our little hearts till we weigh 500 pounds, or do we starve ourselves into a Robert Palmer video? ( Yes, I still call them videos.)

We hear about the Baby Boomers and the Millennium Generation but were is Generation X? We are poorer than our parents so marketers lump us with baby boomers and the poorer of us with the up and coming Millenniums.

Why aren’t we enjoying our present moments instead of searching outside ourselves? We are the self help market that is preyed upon by anyone with a good idea and we buy it because we want to fit in.

We forgot that we need to carve our own identity. One by one. Sure most of us only used word processors at school but today we have iPhone’s and all the other gadgets. Some of us are even Androids. Some of us are Androids. (sic)

My point is that none of this is real. We need to, each and everyone of us, fight for ourselves, not to discover who we are and what we want, but fight just to be here, now, in the present moment. Not worrying about the washing or the report due in a few days but here now. Giving it our all.

Only by doing this will there be space for the future. Once we can do that, alone and collectively, the rest comes. The Millenniums have already started questioning what employment looks like in a changing world and the rest of us?

Yes, we are asking questions but we need to have courage to explore the questions instead of looking for answers outside of ourselves. Maybe the questions will change. Maybe you will look in the mirror and slap your own face.

All I can say is that I remember being in elementary school thinking, having to write out the day off the black board everyday and thinking:

“Wow, in the year 2000 I am going to be so old.”

Now I am thinking,

“Oh F%$#! I am about to turn 40!”

Age before beauty.

Welcome to 2013!

Help Your Self