7 Things You May Be Letting Pass You By

1. The love that people are trying to give you. It doesn’t manifest itself and wait around until you’re ready to receive it. Take it today or leave it forever.

People love you. They really, honestly do. It seems like we all spend half of our time painstakingly searching for this great life-changing love when really, love is right in front of our noses. The problem, however, is that as with all things in life, it doesn’t usually look or feel like we thought it would. It can be jaded and suppressed, familial and fleeting, temporary and mind-blowing, there when we never expected and vice versa.

2. The accomplished goals, dreams that were sought and conquered, challenges that are no longer plaguing you: these are the days you once fantasized about.

The things you worked so hard to have now that seemed like the answer to your woes a year ago (or further back). We never actually get to enjoy the things we’re after because once they’re here we’re after something else.

3. The understated beauty in the art of just being.

The way your body is functioning to keep you alive in tandem with the consciousness you experience, the thoughts you’re capable of having, the feelings that can overwhelm you, it’s like our whole lives are foreign travels and we’re only fooled into thinking we’re not around the corner from another new discovery.

4. That “forever” is a million little “nows.”

You’ve probably heard that idea phrased different ways, but the principle is the same. Once you feel loved and have great things in your life finally, the next phase is the how do I keep this for as long as I can mentality. It’s almost like a subconscious retaliation to the fact that we’re attaching ourselves to things that we cannot, in fact, take with us. If you want something that will last forever, or if you want to live out the “forever” you promised someone else– realize that this is just another piece of that puzzle.

5. Doors that are open today that may close tomorrow– and never re-open.

What right now has to offer. Whether it seems like it or not, there are opportunities everywhere, you just have to look for them and be willing to see them for what they are: the difficulties they may bring and all. The most promising opportunities are the ones that are present right now… not the ones you’ll be eternally searching for. And these are the stepping stones to getting to them anyway.

6. Your youth: with every second, another drop of it trickles away.

Regardless of how young you are in years, you are still as young as you’ll ever be again. With youth comes a lot of things that are important to aiding the human condition: wonder for today and hope for tomorrow. Don’t let that slip by you. Remember when you were a kid and you were dying to drive a car and shave your face/legs and buy food and do other grown-up things? They’re not as fun when they’re responsibilities.

7. What you are capable of doing and creating because of who you are and where you are right now. These traits and circumstances of yours will never be exactly the same again. Much like love, you can either utilize them or let them pass you by.

What you are capable of creating right now is something that you may never and will probably never be able to replicate. At this very second, your mind and heart are at a place in the journey that they will never return to. This “life” business is a constant evolution, and if you don’t pull art and love and writing and everything else that’s beautiful out of yourself it will simply pass and dissolve. But when you take it out, and write it down, or give it to someone else or express it in one way or another, it remains. And the residue of the dissolution doesn’t build into walls of closedness and darkness that too many of us know.