Take In The Gifts Of Life

“Fearing what the future might bring, keeps you from taking in what the present is already bringing. Take in the gifts.” ~LMB

Have you ever been afraid to celebrate the good out of fear of jinxing it or “testing fate”? If you have, then you are not alone. Many people struggle with celebrating their successes and instead worry about all the things that could go wrong. For example:

• After finally getting the promotion you’ve been waiting for, you immediately start to worry about screwing it up rather than celebrating.
• You move to your dream location, and instead of taking in the joy, you worry about all the things that could go wrong with this move.
• You’re loving your vacation, yet, you tell yourself, “I better not be too happy or I’ll jinx this.”

Sadly, many joyful moments drowned out by reflexive worrying about how it will all go away.

Here’s the truth: When one good thing happens, it does not, and cannot, cause a bad thing to happen. Good events are supposed to be enjoyed, celebrated, and appreciated. Worrying about something awful happening, does not stop something horrible from happening. And, your joy does not notify the black cloud police to come in and bring doom and gloom. There is zero connection between having something good happen, and it triggering something horrible to happen. There’s no scorekeeper in the sky tallying your joy meter. Not allowing yourself to appreciate the moment, and celebrate the gifts of life, only succeeds in sucking the joy out of your life. It does not succeed in keeping away the hard times.

Wasting your energy on worrying about all the bad things that could go wrong, robs all the good things of their power. Take in the gifts. Celebrate the happy moments. Breathe them in, note them, and be grateful for them. The hard times make the good times that much more impactful. It’s like being sick and miserable for days only to wake up feeling so much better. Day-to-day we don’t notice how good it is to feel good. After several days of feeling bad, though, feeling good is like a breath of fresh air! “Whew—damn, it feels good to feel healthy again!”

Take in the joyful moments. Breathe in the calm that comes after your life storms. Appreciate the successes, be thankful for the little and big things that go your way, and stop worrying about how the other shoe could drop. If the other shoe drops, it was going to happen with or without you celebrating the joyful moments.

Challenge: Train yourself to take in the gifts of life. Celebrate your successes. Breathe in your joyous moments. Allow yourself to appreciate the moments that deserve to be celebrated and handle the hard ones. Treat these different experiences as separate, because they are. Do not allow one to cloud the other.