Recovery Meditations: October 27th


Living in the Present

“As long as you are seeking to find happiness somewhere,
you are overlooking where true happiness is.”
Gangaji


Happiness is always somewhere else, isn’t it? It is all too human to put off our happiness until a more appropriate or perfect time. Ideally, we know that happiness is not a matter of timing; it is a state of mind caused by even the smallest actions that we take (or fail to take) each day. However, I often used to remark to others that, “One day I will be happy when I get thin.” I got much thinner, but never thin enough, it seems. “One day I will take a night course.” I was so busy working, “on-call”, and doing things for others that I never managed to find the time.

“One day I will start this new food Plan,” I’d promised myself. It had worked for others. I truly wanted to give myself a chance to see if it could work for me too, yet I approached it haphazardly, at first. On paper, any food plan is just a diet, unless, you have a Sponsor, use the Tools, and work the Steps! I’d been told this over and over, and later--lived the actual experience of doing it my way. As long as I told myself, “One day I will find the time for me,” it didn’t come about!

One day at a time...
I now realize that as long as I keep looking to the future in order to allot myself wonderful challenges and small joys, I am choosing to postpone my happiness until my life is perfect, which is never in the realm of reality. I believe that this is why those who have gone before us in recovery suggest that we live life on life’s terms to the best of our ability just “One day at a time.”

~ January K.