Intangible faith

If you were to ask me, I would tell you that I tend not to deal well with things that are intangible. I want to see it in front of me, be able to touch it, to physically feel it under my fingertips.

But if you really think about it, the most important things in our lives are comprised of the intangible. Belief in God, friendship, love – all of these are intangible, you can’t hold them in your hand. They are possible because we take a leap, a leap of faith.

They all ask for a belief in a greater power, confidence in another. While I like to classify myself as fearless, I can't always be. Sometimes it's fear - or at a minimum, doubt - that keeps me from making that leap of faith, jumping into unknown waters. I don’t want to pose a question if I’m unsure of the answer.

I’m a work in progress, trying to live aware of the past and hopeful for the future, but with a tighter focus on the moment standing immediately in front of me. I can’t change the past. The future will unfold as it will. So this moment now is all that I can affect. I have to be ok with the intangible and not having everything always figured out. Besides, if I did…what fun is there in that?

The moment of now

What I do for a living, combined with my personality, makes it a great challenge for me to live in the moment. I’m more often immersed in the past or the immediate future, the next deadline, the next client call. Worrying about how my past actions will affect the next moment; worrying about trying to think though my responses to a difficult situation that I know is coming. This contradicts my original hope to spend more time this year just living in the moment. I came across this quote in body+soul that reminds me it should be about the moment.

“The moment right now is all you ever really possess in life. If you sit and sincerely contemplate this, you will realize that you are never truly guaranteed the next moment. Your mind is determined to consistently place your attention deep within the past or into the future. Both of these (living in the moments of the past or dreaming of the moments of the future) are illusions that destroy the reality of the present. Detach yourself from the faulty guidance of your mind and simply allow yourself to be in the radiance of the Now. This is where living takes place; it does not exist anywhere but in the present,” by Richard Singer Jr. in Eastern Wisdom for Your Soul.

Living and being within the moment is all that more difficult when you're in the middle of a situation that has past issues and future implications weighing heavy on the decision you are trying to make right now. There are too many factors, twists and turns, emotions, history, etc. I suppose all I can do is make the best-educated decision I can in the moment I'm in. Maybe a little more patience and calm would help. There are times when I need to see only the moment of now.