Must Be Present To Win

There are days when I feel like I am LIVING my life and there are days when it seems I am standing off in some far removed corner, watching my life happen. All too often I can get caught up in the chaos of the hamster wheel cage, running around and around and around, expending all sorts of energy and business without ever really going anywhere.

What does it take to be fully engaged in my own skin, a human BEING instead of a human DOING?

I remember entering a drawing at a fair once where I received a little blue ticket with a number on it. On the back side of the ticket were stamped the words "Must Be Present to Win." Yep. That's true. We need to be fully present in our lives to win.

Because I am a person with a deep faith in God, I also am a powerful believer in the forces of darkness. I am convinced that one of the ways the adversary gets us is NOT by luring us into wretchedness and depravity, but rather by just keeping us so bloody DISTRACTED and BUSY that we don't stop to ponder, to pray, to sit quietly ready to listen to silent promptings of the spirit.

I think it is great that I'm smart enough and strong enough and healthy enough to accomplish all sorts of good things. I'm truly grateful for the abilities I've been blessed with. But sometimes I think I need to remind myself to just STOP all my frantic running around, no matter how worthy the projects I am involved with, so I can just be present to myself for a while.
I read somewhere recently: "Collapsing in exhaustion does NOT count as relaxation."

Multi-tasking is highly over-rated. Yes, there is always one more good thing I could be doing. But for today I think I'll toss out the to-do list and just practice BEING.