The If-Only Game

Well, summer has begun, but work has not yet. That is okay with me, because I know that it will start, and once it does, I think I will feel like I deserved this time off, even if I don't feel that way right now. So far I have taken a wonderful trip to Toronto where I visited a wonderful cousin and a wonderful friend, read a couple of books, cut my hair, gone to play pool and have bubble tea, gone for my first run in too long (I know it's too long because of how my legs felt afterward), and ate a lot of really really amazingly delicious food. I have also been doing some thinking, some of it aimless and some of it more directed. I figured I should actually write something on here,since it's been a while, so I'll see what I come up with.

Sometimes when my mind is running through thoughts but I am not really directing it - just letting it wander where it will - I get into a sort of cycle that gets me nowhere. The cycle goes something like this: "Remember the time when (insert memory here) happened? Wasn't that a wonderful time in life? Didn't I feel great? Wouldn't it be great if life were still that way? Why isn't life that way? Should I be doing something differently? I think I've done everything I can, and life is where it needs to be right now. Well, if I've done all I can or should, then I might as well be happy where I'm at and trust God to lead me on to the next thing." It is a cycle that starts with random happy memories, progresses through discontent and then ends in acceptance and peace and hope. At least that's where I hope the cycle ends. The thing about a cycle is that it doesn't really end, but just goes around and around, and sometimes it feels like it ends at the discontent stage.

I am reading a book called "The Shack" right now, and I read something the other day that I thought related to this cycle I get myself in. William Young writes, "It is so easy to get sucked into the if-only game, and playing it is a short and slippery slide into despair... if only, if only if only. And then to have it all come to nothing."

That sounds like a little bit of a depressing statement. But really, I think that realizing this trap is the best way to get out of this cycle, or at least to know how to deal with it when it starts. It is so easy to get frustrated with where I'm at and wish that I could either go back to a time in the past or jump forward to some future time, but the problem with that is that I can't do anything to get me to those times. All I will ever have is this moment, and playing the if-only game doesn't get me anywhere besides into a mood of discontent. I think that as I get older and experience more of life, I come to see more and more that I need to make the most of the time that is now, because to focus on anything else gets me nowhere. Has any of this made any sense? I don't really know, but that's okay because this is my blog and that's what was in my head as I wrote it. I'm living in the moment, okay? And now perhaps I will make the most of the next 8 hours of moments and get some sleep. Or maybe I could make it more like the next 10 hours of moments. Like I said, work hasn't started yet.