You Are The Light

What you focus your attention on is illuminated.

If you’re looking to change, to improve, to be happier, to be more productive, to soothe your depression, to ease your anxiety, or to in any way alter your daily life for the better, you must look closely at yourself.

You absolutely must find time in your day to step away from the world, be quiet, be still, and turn your attention inward.

This doesn't have to be meditation, though this is perhaps the most intensely directed route. It can be any activity that moves your attention from your mind to your body, and allows you the space to play and create. Gardening, painting, hiking, writing, sketching, crafting. If you've ever lost track of time doing something, look there.

Like meditation, these activities naturally and inevitably invoke introspection, whether you intend them to or not.

If you don’t, you’re likely to live a life less than fully lived, or perhaps you’ll be forced into the change by circumstances. Depending on how far off your path you are, your situation may become so intolerable and so out of tune with your true self that your external environment can simply not be sustained any more. It’s the quintessential rock bottom. This can be a painful process. Take my word for it and get ahead of it. Find the time before it forces you to.

The ability to turn your attention inward is encumbered by any number of obstacles. None of them are unassailable. And the hard truth is they are likely not as difficult to overcome as are your own excuses.

The volume of potential excuses is infinite, but you can likely name yours better and easier and in more detail than you can perhaps admit to your wanting for belief in yourself.

I don’t have the time. I have obligations. I was born this way. This isn't for me. 

The truth is you do believe. You wouldn’t have true desire without the means to achieve it. Anything is possible, as they say. And your dreams are no exception.

I know this because I was there. My ideal life was always something in the future. It would come later. After I had enough money. After I had enough success. After I raised my kids. After I took care of my extended family.

But then there was the spark. That moment where something caught my attention that was deeper and brighter than anything I had previously experienced. Or maybe it had been there all along. That seems likely in hindsight. Perhaps I needed to get to such a dark place before I could no longer look past it. But it was there, and it became the focus of my attention.

And I became it. And then realized that I was it all along. I was the light. I am the light. You are the light. This is what it means to be conscious. Not just awake. But to be conscious. Self aware. Aware. 

The ability to step aside from life for a moment isn’t a quick fix. It’s not usually an instantaneous thing, though it can be. Like water and sunlight, purposeful silence is best consumed daily in the right quantity and at regular intervals.

Start your journey today. Don’t expect anything blatant or obvious. Expect subtlety and perhaps elusive for a while. And be patient.

But take a moment. Take your moment. Every day. And see what happens.