Inspirational Saturday: Life Accumulates

(29 years apart, still going on weird adventures. The result? Always a curious and novel life!)

You wake up one day and there's a chicken neck, jowls, and frown lines on your face? How the hell did that happen? It's like it happened overnight.

I know it's not a popular thing, but I actually don't believe time exists. It's a concept that was designed by man to explain a series of events over a life, the cycle of daylight and the aging of people--a point of reference, but there is only a series of events and happenings, incidents and physical deterioration and it is not "time" that is the enemy, it is the cumulative effect of living.

Today, if I drink 2 sodas, I will gain 24 pounds in a year just from that one "tiny thing a day."

Today, if I suntan every day, I can age myself a good 10 years within one year of tanning.

Today, if I neglect telling a loved one that I love him, within a year he will become insecure, within a few years, he will become apathetic.

Today, if I ignore some of my work piled up on my desk, by the end of the year, I will be so behind, my job will be at risk.

Today, if I have a drink after supper to calm down, within a few months, it will take 2 drinks to calm me down and within a year, I could become an alcoholic.

It's hard for humans to understand that every decision we make every day, from eating the whole grains to walking from the back of the parking lot to opening the doors for other humans beings, can have a cumulative effect, but we are the sum of what we concentrate on each day.

Each day represents your whole life.

That expression about karma is a bitch is oh so true! You are a reflection of every conscious decision you make each day. Your year is a reflection of what you did every day during that year. You are a sum total of accumulated action or inaction.

People who obtain goals we dream of, make decisions every day to live that goal in every decision they make. Do I relax and watch TV or do I finish going over my accounts? Do I go shopping at the mall or workout? Every one of those decisions defines where they end up.

Those of us asleep at the wheel show it at the end of the year for not having attained any goals we made on New Year's. I am always baffled when someone I know says "I don't know how this happened." (work issues, not getting along with others, marital troubles, weight gain). It's not like they couldn't have seen it coming each and every day.

You want to know how a person is living his or her every day? Look at his career, his physique, his relationships--it becomes evident where his priorities actually are.

I had a teacher once who neatly had us write the top three most important things in our life in order of importance. Then, we were to write down the top three things we spend out time doing every day in order of time consumption (sleep excluded). We found that many of us had lives that did not reflect our personal priorities.

You are the cumulative result of how present or not-present you are in your daily life, whether it's relationships, career or your physical self. Let's say that again, it bears repeating:

You are the cumulative result of how present or not-present you are in your daily life.