Step Into the Room

"It does not matter how many breaths you take in your lifetime.  What matters is what takes your breath away."  


Getting caught up in minutiae and small worries every day can steal away our precious time and deprive us of opportunities to be awed, to stand in wonder.  Big things happen every little moment of the day, but are we prepared for them?  


Unfortunately, no.  


A young person may not know this so well -- although I know some who do -- but a lifetime is only so long; we never know really, exactly know how long, but the clock is ticking.   


Here we sit in front of the TV, spending our precious time, using our lives up.  Here we sit in our cars, stuck in traffic, not taking any opportunity to stand in awe.  Here we are thinking we are useless or inferior or unworthy when, in truth, we are none of those things.  Here we go believing ugly things about ourselves and sit, shriveling up and sad, blinking fearfully over in the corner of a bored-out-of-our-minds existence.  


Sitting there waiting for something good to show up in the day, or our whole life long, is a really big gamble, and the odds are stacked against us.  The chances are pretty slim that a magical fairy godmother is going to tap you on the shoulder with a golden wand and grant your wishes and whisk you into a different existence.  


Haven't you heard that when a person is told they only have six months to live, they cut loose and do what they've really always wanted to do?  They realize that the time is now, the gift is there before them, and they finally decide to open it up and take a good look at what's inside.  


But you -- what about you?  What are you waiting for?  


Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. - Seneca


If you stood in the doorway of a very large room filled with gifts and never opened them, were timid, afraid to go over and pick one up and hold it, wouldn't that be the same thing as never doing the things you say you've always wanted to?  


If you wait and wonder, sit and mull it over, do not go forward with what you imagine, it is as if the play is over, the audience is leaving and the cleaning crew is beginning to sweep the floor.  


Be bold, try on that new hat, go out into the day and take notice of what's really before you.  Your gifts are more plentiful than you can possibly imagine.  The room of unwrapped surprises is limitless, infinite, and has nothing to do with fear.  Fear keeps you standing in the doorway, unprepared to take the opportunities within you.  Step into that room, reach for the boundaries of your imagination.  You'll never succeed in finding them.  And that is just plain good luck.