JUDY EMERSON Author and Personal Coach

What should I do this morning, I asked God.

“Write”, came my answer, without a beat in between. A clear assignment.

Okay, I get it, I said. But first I’ll check Facebook. (I start my morning this way more often than I like to admit. I have virtuous friends who don’t engage in this practice, but I’m just trying to clean my side of the street. In my defense, I don’t, by the way, have an Instagram account, or Ticktock, or… well, the rest.)

Ahem.

So, when I came up for air, I thought, that was two hours I’ll never get back. I asked myself what good did any of that do? None. When I succumb to the siren call of Facebook, when I doom scroll or watch one irrelevant video after another, head down, I am abdicating the real pleasures of my life. The sky, the trees, the birds, the relationships, the learning, satisfactions, accomplishments, the necessary functions and real joys awaiting my time and attention in the present moment, right here. Everything of significance to my life function holds is breath until I put down the phone. When I say yes to a time-suck, I say no to everything else.

Only I can do my life. And while I was focused on the past or the future or what was somebody else’s business or nobody’s business at all, my life was waiting for me, tapping its foot. The answers to my prayers are queued up, waiting to be recognized. My gifts never get unwrapped when I am rooting around in somebody else’s stuff which does not apply, is the never gonna happen. Complaints about the past or worries for the future, resentments or wishes, obsessing over what is out of my control and completely beside the point. What price do I pay for distraction that masquerades as “entertainment?” Anxiety. Waste.

The universe sets a table for me every day, of blessings and opportunities to infuse my life with wonder and meaning. My feast is over there getting cold and stale, while I am scrounging through junk and garbage. Get your head in the game, Judy.

Be here and now. The PRESENT is where all the juicy stuff lives. The power to make a difference lives only in the present moment. If I can’t quite believe I can do that BIG thing—the mirage of which shimmers in the FUTURE in my head— I can do the next right thing I can see, now. I can brush my teeth. I can clean the kitchen. I can take a walk, where I can notice my blessings. I can ask for God’s help.

I know the next right thing for me personally is not fixing all the distressing news on the TV and online. For today, I can do SOMETHING—starting with the next right thing—a small action in a positive direction. After that, if I’m paying attention, another step will be revealed.

God, help me not to freeze in place, not give in to the overwhelm of the news or my worries about someone else’s choices. Help me to manage the life I’m in right now. Show me today’s blessings and opportunities and give me strength to use them well. Yesterday’s resources expired already, and tomorrow’s resources will be displayed tomorrow, if I’m looking for them. Just for today, I can choose to center myself, to align with what I can see that is good and right. Just for today, I can do something of value. Today is the most important resource of all.