my wife loves to dream. dreaming of what kind of house we might live in one day soon, a vacation we might take in the near future. she loves playing 'what if'...."What if we go to Italy?" "What if we live over in this neighborhood, in this house?" it is wonderful to think about the what if game when thinking about things that could happen in the future. it really isnt that bad of thing to think about the 'what ifs' of the past.
the problem becomes when we begin to obsess on them. what if i had done this different? what if i had met this person instead of that person? what if we had moved here instead of there? what if i had tried harder in high school, in college? we begin to become wrapped up in the 'what ifs' that we distract ourselves from our current reality and slowly disengage from it...because we are caught up in the what could have been?
i was talking to a good friend over the weekend and i challenged him to focus on the 'what nows' instead of 'what ifs' ....rather than focus on the past and how things might have been different, which we can never truly know....focus on where you are and what you can do now. i began to be convicted by my own statement. and then i started to wonder, how much of our lives do we miss because we don't focus on the what nows.
Life is full of problems, challenges...and rather than approaching them thinking about how we could have avoided them...lets focus on how we can conquer them...on the what nows. so, next time you hear me complaining about what could have been or how i could have done this or that different....remind me....don't focus on the what if, focus on the what now.
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