Awake and Alive

Ever feel like you've just been coasting through life? Not taking advantage of each moment? I know we all do it. It's very hard to live 100% in the moment, 100% of the time. Your mind wanders, even your heart seems to wander, but what happens to those moments that we choose to not inhabit? Time gets away from us. Moments get away from us. Things impact us deep in our hearts, and we will lose track of not just hours, days, or weeks, but entire months or years even. The condition of the human heart greatly changes our outlook on life, and our perception of time.

When one is deeply impacted, either positively or negatively, our perception of time seems to be distorted. I remember the few times in my life that I've been depressed. My heart and mind seemed to lose all track of time. You wake up, but you aren't awake, you sleep, but you don't rest. Life just drags on, and things happen, but nothing phases you. Nothing can, because you shut down spiritually. Something happens that truly breaks you to your core, and you turned off. Its just about the saddest thing that can happen to someone.

When you turn your heart off, I tend to think that you cease to exist after a fashion. Without your heart, and without your spirit being involved in your life, and in the lives of those who you are close to, something awful happens. Nothing. Nothing at all. You become a black hole in life. Instead of radiating energy, light, hope, love, you become a vacuum that sucks up those things. Where there is light, you dim it, where there is love, you show hate. We become the embodiment of the opposite, because that's how we feel, and whether we realize it or not, we radiate that which we feel, and that which we believe. Whether for good or for bad, we show our true colors always.

But what happens when we wake up? What happens when the darkness fades? When we have a revelation of Love, and Freedom that we have never experienced before? The world turns, your life changes, and instead of being a black hole, we become Stars. That type of experience is what I refer to as a Paradigm Shift. Whenever you literally look at the world differently than you did before. Even if its just a little bit different, all things change because the way you view the world has changed.

So what happens you you become Awake? When you become Alive inside? The days, weeks, months, years that have been claimed by the dark, don't really matter anymore. You are no longer defined by them, and they no longer have control over you, and now instead of trying to focus on living in the moment, you realize that you already are. Your world is no longer defined by what tomorrow may have in store, or what next week can bring. Your world consists of now. What is going on now, in this moment, are you talking with someone? Listening to music? Playing a video game? Doesn't matter what it is that you're doing. The point is to do it. Live in the moment. Breathe in the experiences. Love the life and time that you're given. Because in the end, we don't know what tomorrow will bring. All that we have and know for certain, is what we have right now.

So don't feel guilty about the time that you've lost, because in all honesty, you didn't lose time, You did something necessary for the human heart to thrive, and you are better off than you were before. So whatever it is that you find yourself doing, live in that moment. When you listen to music, don't let it just be noise for you while you do something else. Feel the rhythm, the beat, listen to the words, and how the music resonates inside of you. If you're talking to someone, talk to them, be there for them, and look them in the eye. Don't think about what you will do when the conversation ends, or what you still have yet to do this week. People know when you're truly listening, and when you're just being an empty shell.

Follow your heart in all things, and Live for the Moment.

~Joseph