The Present Moment

I’ve never been much of a writer, but I’ve learned so much this past year that I felt compelled to share.

When you’ve been in the hospital twice in 9 months with cardiac issues in your 20s, you learn a lot about life. This past August I was diagnosed with pericarditis for the second time. The weekend after I was released from the hospital is a weekend I will never forget. I remember asking myself why this was happening to me and what I did to deserve it. I started wondering whether this would happen a third time, and whether I’d still be around if it does. I craved not just the gym and the outdoors, but a reassurance that I wasn’t going to see my deathbed in my 20’s. And these thoughts were absolutely debilitating. They brought me into a dark lonely place that I didn’t believe could exist. For the second time I was faced with a condition that could have wiped me off the face of this earth in a matter of seconds. Yet it was in this dark place where I realized a mantra that I will forever live by from now on, and that is to live in the present.

This life can rip you away in the blink of an eye. It can take away your loved ones, your health, the roof above your head, the food on your table, your job, everything. Life being unfair is an understatement. Life is relentless, it does what it wants and there’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes it’ll throw you curve balls you didn’t see coming, other times it’ll hit you with a freight train you didn’t think was imaginable. But there’s one thing that life can never take away from you:
The present moment.

No matter what life throws at you, no matter how much life has taken from you, no matter where life has brought you, you will always have the present moment. And if you can always find a way to appreciate the moment and derive happiness from it one way or another, you’ll always be happy. So every day from now on for the rest of my life, I am thankful for the present moment and the friends and family that have brought me there. And I want you to take a second and appreciate the moment wherever you are right now. Because life is a lot more fragile than you think.