Everyday Inspiration: Living in the Gap
If you’re like most people, you have something that occupies your time or attention most days. We get up and have an idea of how the day will unfold based on the past or some sort of future planning. We plan, we strategize, we plot, we plunder. Yet life seems to have its way with us. Many of us have the best intentions for how we picture our lives to unfold. So why do the days go by where we feel we end up living defensively versus offensively?
It’s because you’re living in the gap, a term coined by my hero Vishen Lakhini, founder of MindValley. You have an idea of where you want your life to be. You have a mental list of criteria that, once accomplished, will allow you to feel as though you are finally living the life you want. This could be meeting the love of your life, getting promoted, passing a test, selling your house. These are goals somewhere in the future. The problem with this is that you’re postponing your happiness until you get there.
You either live in the future or the past by thinking you are going to be happy when you reach the target. This is living in the gap. You’re never really here nor there. You are in the space in between. How’s that working for you?
You work hard to check off your to do list and, in the meantime, miss out on what’s going on now. This may mean postponing time with your kids, not noticing that guy who looks at you when buying your coffee, avoiding pleasurable activities with friends, or not seeing the rainbow right in front of you.
“You must have your goals but your happiness cannot be tied to these goals. You must be happy before you attain them.” – The Paradox of Intention from the book Quantum Success
The other problem you will encounter comes when you hit the target because you make a new target and extend the gap!
Believe it or not, life happens for you, not to you. However, it can’t enter unless you are open and willing to receive the everyday gifts that are offered each day. The destination is the journey. Too bad most of us are somewhere else.
The solution is to go from nowhere to now here and free yourself from the never ending purgatory of the gap.
How to get there? Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude.
Start becoming thankful for where you are now, for what your life looks like now. This gets you prepped to seeing the Real potential behind the people and situations that present themselves each day.
Happiness is contagious. When you become more satisfied with your life as it is in the moment, the side effect is happiness. When you stop seeing what’s missing from the moment and start to see what’s right in front of you, that’s when everything changes.
Visualize what you think would be a good addition to your life, let go and become unattached to how it looks and When it comes. Because when you can start to see the present moment with new eyes, through the eyes of gratitude, you will see that what you have been searching for may have been there all along.
Are you ready?
As you take each step I will be there reminding you of your Magnificence, and I will continue to do so, until you are able to see it in yourself. © Copyright. Jennifer Annenberg Productions. 2013. All Rights Reserved. This publication may not be reproduced under any circumstances without the written consent of Jennifer Annenberg.
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