It feels like I’m hearing, but not really listening. Looking, but not really seeing. Existing, but not really living. Sometimes I have days, weeks, or maybe even months of feeling like I’m just letting the world pass by me, and without even noticing I’m another year older and it’s just another cycle of this all over again.
I never really accepted the fact that I have the ability to change this. To control how I perceive life and the way that I live it. As much as I talk about how we control our thoughts and actions, I still forget that this is the case. I always want someone to come to me with a great opportunity or have someone make all of the important decisions for me because my brain can’t seem to handle the fact that I am a person who has the capabilities to do these things too. A lot of this has to do with anxiety, the guest that constantly over-stays their welcome.
I’m sure a lot of you feel this way sometimes too. For example, you’re listening to a song and then right after it’s over you had no idea it was just playing because your mind just seemed to zone out out of nowhere, and the last 2 minutes were a blur. Or you’re listening to someone tell a story and your eyes may go a bit foggy from trying hard to focus, and your brain forces you to think about completely unrelated topics. Yes? No? Is this relatable at all? I don’t know your response but I’m going to pretend that it is.
It’s a dream-like state, but it’s not as whimsical as it may sound. It’s like you’re stuck in a dream because nothing around you seems real. Life is passing by and you’re just letting it happen without you. Why do we let this happen? Why DOES it happen? My guess is that anxiety plays a huge role in this, and also the routine of our lives that we put ourselves in. I’ve been going to school all my life, and its pretty much all I know. So, a lot of the times when I get back into that routine of going to school with a set schedule, I feel repetitive and predictable. Now that it is summer and I’m working too, it is the same thing with that. The set schedule and the brain-fog that comes with effortlessly driving the commute to work without even realizing when you got there.
If you feel this way too, what has helped me is to be more spontaneous with how we spend our time. Do something you didn’t do the day before, trick your brain to show that YOU have control over it. It can be big or small changes that we add, but they must be positive ones that help us grow.
Going back to the topic of wanting certain opportunities, everything we want is on the other side of fear. Once we know that we have the chance of attaining something good and valuable, we get scared because then it’s something that we could lose. We don’t know for sure that we could lose it someday, so why are we so afraid of things that haven’t even happened yet? All we should be focusing on is RIGHT NOW and how we are feeling in this current moment.
It’s ok to think about the future once in a while, and the past, but ultimately, we should be mainly concerned with what is happening right in the present moment. We control our thoughts and our actions, we are able to get ourselves out of the rut of dwelling on things that could’ve been. We are capable of CREATING those opportunities instead of waiting for them to happen. Also, once we stop focusing so much on those negative aspects of our thoughts, then more good will come into our lives unexpectedly.
Unexpected, spontaneous, we have a theme here. I think we all could use a little more spontaneity in our lives to help us be less afraid of the future. Sometimes it is even more scary when the future is predictable, especially if you are doing something now that you don’t want to be doing in the future. Its all about taking the initial first step to do something different in your life that could lead to the dramatic positive change you have always been wanting.
