In life, we find so many wonderful things. The interactions between people. The emotions of life. The wonders of the senses and the power to be able to do anything we put our minds to. Life is indeed an empty shell. It’s what we do with that shell that makes it what it really is. How we fill ourselves up every day starts the moment we wake up.
When I wake, I always take a moment to asses my mood and my outlook for the day. The mornings for me are the best times to change internal things if we choose to because just like life, every morning is an empty slate for us to fill with the colors we choose, our outlook for the day, how we view the activities of the day and how we want to perceive the day.
When I feel a little out of sorts, I like to try to change my mood first thing, before life’s activities can begin to form my perception of the day. I begin to see the two sides of how the day can be. I can treat it as a day where I’m feeling a little tired, or I can choose to think that the day’s activities will help me to feel amazing once I get going.
I think the choice is within us every day as to how we want to live life. In life there can be things that we don’t expect, and at times these things can ruin what we’ve already perceived as a good day. But the way we start out that day makes all the difference for how we live it.
I remember the mornings right after I quit. The first morning I faced smoke free, I remember waking and wondering how the day was going to be. I knew how I wanted it to be, but with this new situation, I wondered what might actually happen. Would I feel bad enough to lose my brand new quit? Would I feel depressed or lost?
On that confusing day, I simply sat up and told myself that today was a new beginning and that tomorrow I will grow from my experiences today. And each time I faced a crave on that first day, I thought of tomorrow. Of my new clean slate, and how wonderful I was going to feel that I found a way to get past my own worst enemy. Myself.
I believe it was around the third day of my quit that I first dreamed of Mt. Freedom. I built that mountain on a morning that I was feeling a little out of sorts. I saw the similarities between climbing a tall mountain and quitting. The fear that one feels at first. The fear of falling, or slipping backwards.
I saw that just like any journey, it had to start with that first step. And just like climbing a mountain, each step gives a little more confidence. A little more belief that I could make the next step, and the next, and the next. And that over time, I could look down the slopes and see how far I’d come. I could see those ahead of me on the mountain, and I always left breadcrumbs for others to follow, just as others left them for me.
The boulder fields and snow fields ahead always reminded me that though I’d come a long ways, one misstep could send me tumbling down to the beginning of the trail, and all I wanted was to see that summit. To wave the banner of freedom that I knew was there high over my head! I wanted that so much more than anything my addiction could throw at me. And this was my vision every morning, bringing my heart, mind and soul together to create the one thing I wanted more than anything else. To be free! To soar above the discomforts of my addiction to that wonderful place that I knew was there!
In life, we have to make choices. Sometimes we have to make that choice every day, the moment we wake up so that all of the elements of our beings are in sink to the task at hand. In life we have to weigh what is helping us against what might be harming us.
In life we have to look to the future sometimes in order to make it through the present. In life we have to make the choices in the present that will make our future brighter. In life, we have to remember that every choice we make determines how our future will look tomorrow.
We must seek a life of freedom over all else because the alternative is just ugly, sad and full of despair. We have the power within us to make our futures. All we have to do is commit to making the right choices now, and in the end life will be wonderful!!
ONWARD TO FREEDOM!!!
Chuck
