Becoming

I suppose I ought not be surprised that so much of my energy has been put into a world that is still becoming. It is an important survival skill that I have as a human, that I can anticipate what might happen and adapt. I avoid danger, I avoid failure by looking at events that haven’t happened but are only in a state of probable becoming. I also think that by paying attention to what is still becoming, I often miss what is happening right now.

I’m trying to change that.

So much of my life has been an experience of an unfolding of a world that is still in a state of becoming. So much attention and attempted awareness has been directed to what I anticipate or expect might happen. I know I am not alone in this. I have heard many times that the anticipation of some pleasurable experience is more powerful than the actual experience. The same thing is said of things I dread.

I think I have been living a large part of my life in this state, in this phase of becoming. Slowly, I am putting more of my awareness and attention into what is happening right now. I still make plans for the future. I think of meeting friends for tea or for an outing. But my life is less a time of becoming and the flow of energy is more in what has already become right now. I absorb more of what is happening in the present.

I am more attentive to the miracle of being here, not so much concerned about what is becoming. I care less about what I will become and what I will experience, and I care more about what I experience now.

I often attempt to manage, to control, to adapt to what is yet to be. This can be useful, but it often limits the scope of my true experience to my prior-conceived notion of what is becoming, not what actually is. When my notion of the future, what is becoming, turns out to be wrong, I am more inclined to resist what has actually become.

Based on what I expect reality to become, I limit my experiences and in a real manner shape my experiences because of what I anticipated. The unfolding of the moment is shaped by what I expect, and my reality is but a small sample of what is possible. I limit what has become my reality.