Life is Distracting. Stay Committed to the Moment.
Perspective is about seeing life from a particular viewpoint.
When you’re driving on the highway, more often than not, you’ll see spots with binoculars or blue signs that say Viewpoint. There’s a sign to indicate, pull off to the side so you can pause and enjoy the moment. We pull over, get out of the car, and say WOW — what a view. You might even say, let’s take a moment to check out this viewpoint. You rush back in the car and keep going. But you stopped to take in the moment. You stopped to take a photo and maybe rush to share it in your stories or on IG. At one point, before our lives were meticulously curated, we followed along in social for all of our life moments.
We were trained to follow along to see what our friends were doing at that exact moment. Regardless, you’ve learned that life is about moments. We have all learned this. We’ve come together, to share content about telling us to purge social, to heal with our trauma, to let it go, to rest, to practice self-care and to actually live our lives. However, you experience this — it’s about distractions stealing what you’re committed to at the moment.
We’re either living in the moment, sharing a moment or passing by through moments. Moments become a blur and then become a memory.
If you’re someone who struggles to quote live in the moment, is it because you don’t associate with the stigma that it means you’re an aloof personality type? Is it because you’re afraid to feel what’s happening right in front of you? Is it because your past can suddenly, unexpectedly sit right there with you when you feel the moment? When you live in the moment?
You see we pack in so many moments all day long. We pack in moments on our phones or take a moment to send an email. We’ve almost all shared the statement “ yeah, give me just a moment” or “I’ll be there in a moment”.
If you’re like me, a classic enneagram 7, I could be there in a moment and get distracted with 3 other moments on the way to that quote, moment, and I’ll be so excited to tell you all about them. It doesn’t mean that moment that I said “ be there in just a moment” isn’t important to me, it’s that there are moments along the way that I don’t want to miss.
This quarantine lifestyle has taught us to take in the moment. Inhale — the moment. Exhale—the moment. Pause — in the moment. Cry — in the moment. Laugh — in the moment. And sit alone — in the moment. If your house is packed with kids, your moment might be a glass of wine — in the closet.
If you’re single, you might be staring at all the moments you could have done something different in a relationship. You might be taking moment after moment to wonder if you could have done it differently. Why you didn’t approach it another way. Why you couldn’t have said it differently. Approached it in a better way. Didn’t let your childhood impact how you would engage at the moment. But that’s life.
In one moment you might buy a bottle of wine. In another moment, you might be staring at it being a 9-year-old bottle and wondering what the right moment is to ever actually enjoy it. The emotions attached to it can distract you and torment you. The same emotions to the bottle can linger in other tangible ways.
I made a commitment to myself in January to stop the digital noise. To stop with the digital clutter. To pause the insanity of emails. It was consuming my inbox, my attention, my affection, my focus. It was distracting my commitments.
Today we’re focusing on Life is Distracting. Stay Committed.
You see, I felt it stealing so many moments from the present moments. I'm a social butterfly and the last thing I want is to be distracted by all these notifications. If you really know me, you know I max our my phone size and have over 200 apps on my phone.
At some point, you have to pause and cleanse it. You have to reduce the noise so you can rest, reset and refocus.
I was watching how the noise was distracting me. I was watching as I was healing from a tough season that would start to steal moments away from me.
Are you healing from a season?
Are you in a season?
Have you allowed yourself to feel the pain of this season? Or are you making up moments to cover this moment you have to sit with it?
You can distract and numb yourself with endless content on Netflix, Hulu, TikTok and Instagram. Literally, you could completely pivot your career all from consuming content and learning new skills. What an amazing way to spend a moment, but is it distracting you from the moment you’ve been granted right here…right now?
You see, I feel like we ended up becoming so distracted, we’ve normalized it, and when we finally got to sit still, we have had to really feel every single moment.
We had to feel the rush of emotions from the past. We had to feel a cold bed or a cold heart laying in the bed. Either way, there’s always a moment in front of us that can trap us, set us free, reset us or change us forever.
Moments make up our decisions.
Decisions make up our present.
And our present makes up our tomorrow.
If you don’t live in the moment. Why is that? If we’re trapped in the futuristic mindset 100% of the time we will miss the moment. I was once so forward-thinking that I wasn’t really taking in everything that was happening. I would get vulnerability hangovers when I would really share truth, authenticity, and honesty in my friendships because I was used to being the hype girl. I loved being the hype girl. She’s uplighting, energetic and refreshing. But yet I was watching after heavy, hard things happened, I wasn’t really taking anyone on that journey with me. When I needed a moment to let it out, I wasn’t equipped with friends who really knew what was happening at the moment.
If you’re listening to this, thinking — sammme. That’s awesome. If you’re listening to this and feeling like this is you right now. It’s not hard to pause, to take a moment and to just push the button. Facetime the girlfriend you miss. Facetime the best friend who knows nothing about you right now but you love calling her your best friend. Facetime the guy that you think you have outstanding or unfinished relationship moments with.
We give our souls space for reflection. We allow ourselves to sink in deep. To feel what’s going on and to let our guard down. We stop trying to show up so perfectly, and we show up for the moments. We can let the distractions of notifications take over our lives for another 10 years or we can pause and make a change. I’ve been committed to not letting this year be a distraction.
For you, maybe it’s not your phone that distracts you. Maybe it’s not the pressure we’ve created in our culture to respond quickly to someone else’s time. Maybe it’s the fact that you’re distracted in your mind with so many other things as to the life you want to create more than the life you’re living right in front of you.
You might have healing to do. You might have books to read, podcasts to listen to and friendships to grow deeper in. Can I say something for us all? It only takes a moment to change it. To nurture it. To show you care enough to improve it. To act on it. To step up in a new way. To reset it. To let it go.
Whatever you’re feeling in this moment. Remember that life is distracting. stay committed. stay in the moment. and whatever your decision is, remember this again. Moments make up our decisions. Decisions make up our present. And our present makes up our tomorrow. And when you push the pedal, you move forward. Moments start to fall behind us. Decisions of the past impact who we are now. What we feel now. How we show up in the NOW. And the moments of our now will impact our tomorrow. And if there’s one thing we’re reminded in this season, we’re not promised tomorrow.
I hope you desire to show up in the moment. To be present in the moments. To feel this moment. And to acknowledge that it's OK to let yourself be apart of a moment bigger than yourself.
Take care and have a good week.
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