The other night we watched a television program that had high ratings. People said they binge-watched it because it was so good. After about 15 minutes, I wondered when the show was going to get good. Half an hour in, I wondered if we had tuned into the wrong show. An hour later, the program was over and I said to myself, “Well, that’s an hour I’ll never get back.”
In one of his many books, the spiritual teacher Edmond Szekely cautioned that when we choose a book to read, it means there is another book we can’t read. He advocated making conscious choices about what we read.
This can go further. We can make careful choices about television programs, movies, friends, food, drink, and hobbies. Truth is we can even make careful choices about our thoughts and feelings. I think this is called living an aware life.
Do you find yourself running on automatic sometimes? It’s like we slip into a mode of living that doesn’t require us to make conscious choices. Perhaps those are the times when we end up doing or saying things we regret. It isn’t easy to stay conscious. Even when we do, we still might not make the best choices due to lack of information or inaccurate information like happened for me with the television show.
However, the more we can stay aware and make well-informed choices the closer we will come to living a life of grace and ease! This doesn’t have to be boring or limiting. In fact, the more careful we are about our choices, the fuller a life we can live because we’re not wasting time and energy on things that aren’t in our best interest or in keeping with our life goals.
Make the intention to be conscious of your choices for the next hour and see how it feels. If you like it, extend the experiment to the rest of the day, week, month, and beyond. For me, the more I do this the easier it is to…..
Live in grace and ease!
Krysta