Think of someone in your life who lives out the act of being present. For some, this is not an easy thing to do, as we have things that scream and shout for our attention and try and hold our hand and guide us down a path of distractions. I feel like the world, and the Internet, are constantly nagging at us and telling us to "be in the moment" and to "be present," aka to "be where your feet are."
Always being where your feet are is no easy task. It can be hard to dive head first into something and have to figure out how to do life where you land (literally and figuratively speaking). Life is constantly moving; it's never going to stop, and you've got to figure out how to show up so you don't miss it.
In my 20 years of life I've learned that people aren't going to wait on you. You can't go back to memories and wish for more. You can't time travel back to those moments in your head where you see yourself not having the hard conversation, not laughing at the thing that was funny because someone was pissing you off, or not smiling at the boy who was having a hard day because you didn't want someone to think you were weird, and wishing you had just given a little bit more effort. Because that day is gone now. It passed. It happened. The sun went down and you climbed into bed and you can't ring anything else out of that day.
You only get this one opportunity to be big or small, to talk to all of the important people and the behind the scenes people that go unnoticed, and to do what you love. You have this one giant, empty map sitting in front of you, unrolled across the floor waiting for you to drop little red pins on it marking your memories, your sad days, your best friend adventures and your proudest moments.
I've always been frightened by time. It moves too quickly for me, and I like to move fast. It's scary how a few weeks goes by and then you're suddenly flipping the calendar page to a new month with new numbers 1-31 and you get to plan and wonder what the new few weeks will hold before you're flipping that calendar page again. The calendar is always going to be flipped too fast, don't let the days pile up to weeks and the weeks to months without you noticing.
There are multitude of people out there who are experiencing life every second of the day. If you don't hit pause on your rant from the bagel man who was rude or stop venting about the spilled coffee, you will miss out on being where your feet are for the day, for the week, and maybe for the year.
Stop and take the picture of the happy couple. Laugh at all the jokes told. Smile at the sunshine and take advantage of the rainy days. Show up to the places where you're landing in and be where your feet are.
