“Life doesn’t allow for us to go back and fix what we have done wrong in the past, but it does allow for us to live each day better than our last.” ~Unknown
It’s funny how from one day to the next your entire world, the core of your belief systems, and the way you live life just change. It’s even funnier how sometimes you don’t even notice it happening until it already has. One day you wake up and realize you are brand new, your old self has been lost, and your new self has been found.
Let me take you back to when it all changed for me…
I lived in the typical box of a straight-A, hardworking, overachieving, need-to-be-it-all/do-it-all kid. From someone who grew up with scarcity as a looming cloud haunting me through each and every decision, the foundation of my mindset, specifically regarding “success,” was built on outward achievements. Almost as if checking off boxes outside of me would somehow magically bring me a sense of inner peace.
When I was in first grade, I got my first 100 on a test instead of 102 with extra credit. To most people, especially children, this is still a perfectly acceptable grade. (And it’s only first grade—who cares, right?)
I did. I cared so much, too much. I had a complete meltdown, beating myself up over not being good enough/smart enough, all because of one single extra credit question. I felt as though I needed to punish myself for not being perfect, so clearly, I was a little bit ambitious, to say the least. With two accepting and supportive parents, this high-strung striving for greatness was fully self-inflicted.
Within me lived a desperate need to work hard now so that I could enjoy later. I embraced the idea of not enjoying life until xyz had been completed in both the most impactful and most irrelevant life decisions.
When you are so deeply immersed in a cycle of unachievable reward systems, when do you ever have a moment to truly enjoy life? By constantly striving for an unattainable life in the future, I learned that there will always be something more you could be doing, and this can prevent you from living a full life in the present. Doing in the now forever trumps the pleasures of later.
With these beliefs strongly in place, I was on the road to overworking at a job I didn’t align with for the sole purpose of enjoying a few moments here and there on days off actually doing what I liked—what made me feel alive. And unfortunately, this is the expected lifestyle of many people nowadays.
It was mine for a period of time, and this mindset stuck with me for years… until it all changed, of course.
During this whirlwind of unhealthy looping behaviors, life outside of me was still existing. Waves were flowing, cycles were ending, the sun was rising, and my grandma was deteriorating with Alzheimer’s disease.
This is the moment that set in motion the unlearning of my past beliefs and the implementation of my current values. Her disease was the divine trigger that initiated the switch from me doing life to living life.
To take you through my grandparents’ journey, bring to mind those “movie loves” that you think can only exist in the realm of make-believe. The love that you can feel just from watching from afar. My grandparents were the expression of that. Young love—regardless of age.
He was a man with three jobs, and she was a working woman taking on the rather heavy load of raising two children. They put their current time on the line for a better future for their kids—the ones they had and the ones that lived inside themselves.
Before a time when I existed, they lived out the mindset I once so heavily believed in. My grandparents worked hard, that blue-collar-hard, so that when the time came and life had settled down, they could finally enjoy the life they had been waiting for.
As the work had ended, it was as if life had begun. With the well-earned money, these lovebirds traveled the world and were eager to see it all. And that was the plan—work hard now, play hard later… until later was met with sickness and, therefore, was never lived.
My grandfather was a fit man watching his own body betray him as cancer entered and his hope left. And somehow this, as I observed, had been less painful than watching the woman he had created a life with forget who he was.
My grandmother went from a lively, active woman to a child needing to be fed, dressed, and bathed. With my grandfather battling his own health issues and trying to take care of my mentally lost grandmother, it was as if none of it mattered. The money, the time, the hard-work—just like that, gone.
Watching the regret, pain, and heartbreak weigh so deeply on the ones I loved, a shift, more like a full-body revolution, began to swirl within me. Nothing is more uprooting than seeing someone who has lived an entire life from start to finish have regrets of not living sooner.
This pivotal moment shook me to my core; it woke me up in both a startling and subtle way. The regret looming in the air served as a reminder that life is meant to be lived today.
I was forced into the understanding that I can’t, nor do I want, to save my life for later. To enjoy after, to live and to feel in the future. Because what if my “later” ends up like theirs? Unfinished and lost, remaining only in their dreams, not in their realities.
With these heavy understandings, slowly, my approach to life began reflecting this lesson. The lesson that later may never come, that life doesn’t wait for you.
So, here I am today. Writing to you from Italy as a girl who packed up her life and left one day. As a girl with dreams to feel, experience, create, and truly live.
My plans of making lots of money, going to school, and creating a career that wouldn’t fulfill my heart and soul died. The experience of seeing the world, making big and brave decisions, and laughing my way through heartbreak and massive transitions—that is being alive. I feel alive. This life that was once so trapped in a box, a box that wasn’t for me, that made me small—it is gone now.
Today, I live freely and fully not only for me but also for them. For my teachers that came to me in the form of grandparents, for the souls that made me realize and recognize my own. Even though they are no longer here, I am living this life for them.
Life takes turns we can’t anticipate, turns that live outside our realm of fathom. We don’t know where we will be, who we will be with, and what we’ll be doing there. But what we do know is that we need to be there for it, wholly and fully, with our hearts and souls.
Later might not look the way you expect—it might not be there at all. So take the chances, even if you’re scared. Play in the rain to feel alive, sing at the top of your lungs, and dance like nobody’s watching. Because there is nothing like living in the now. It is all we have.
About Gabriella Barone
Gabriella is an intuitive being, always looking to connect with the world around her. As a holistic life coach, she uses various approaches such as yoga, Reiki, inner child healing, etc., to connect/uncover. She is a student and teacher of life, always looking to learn and unlearn. With a unique perspective on life, she is here to share her beliefs and spark something new within each of you. guidancewithgab.substack.com.
The post originally appeared on following source : Source link
