This week’s post continues our #Reflection series. Guest poster Boyd Melson, cofounder of the non-profit http://teamfighttowalk.com/, gives us a unique perspective on taking a step back to take it all in. Enjoy the post, check out and donate to his cause for fighting paralysis, and come on over to MilitaryMentors.org if you haven’t signed up yet. Check us out on Facebook as well!
Growth. It is an evolution of your senses through time. It is transforming from who, what, and why you are at a moment in space and time into who, what, and why you are at the next given moment in time. It is a continuum. Time passing by is an absolute. Whether we are living or deceased, time will keep on passing, as it is completely independent of us.
Everything that we want to experience is dependent upon time. If tomorrow is supposed to be the greatest day of our lives, we have to wait for time to bring it to us. If yesterday involved the greatest grief of our lives, we have to wait for time to pass to heal our pain. Also inherent to our experience is waiting for the future to become our present so that what we wait for tomorrow becomes our now. Every experience in our present was just a future moment not too long ago. Every present experience is a compilation of every past moment in our lives.
At the center of this is the now. I believe living in the now allows for the greatest existence. This greatness is a product of taking full responsibility for our now. Fundamental to this is our affirmation that we created in our past what we live in now. If it is a true continuum, the past is just the beginning. The past is an unchangeable space, but the idea of reflection seemingly gives us an ability to alter our possible future.
I believe life’s cheat sheet has one answer on it – REFLECTION. I believe it is a magical action needed for our success. Unfortunately, as I experience many professionals around me, I witness a lot of hard chargers who focus so much on what they want for their futures that they utterly exhaust themselves trying to achieve this future. Every part of so many peoples’ daily lives is all about a future they want. They appear to be so focused on getting to that future that they do not spend enough time understanding how they got where they are now.
Reflection is an ability to pause the grind. It’s a time to take a moment to recognize where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going. Many of us don’t truly take full responsibility for where we are. We are the only reason we are where we are, and in turn, we are the only reason why we are where we will be. Living gives us the full detailed playbook for our future. It is incumbent upon us to constantly review our playbook through reflection. Knowing what you want in the future is extraordinarily important, but I believe that spending too much time figuring out what to do in the now in order to achieve that future is a game with too much chance. Concerning yourself more with how you got where you are more often than not will help with where are you going.
Along my path, in 2002, I met a person who would change my life forever. I met a young woman named Christan Zaccagnino who had broke her neck in 1993 at the age of 10; she continues to be wheelchair bound due to her spinal cord injury. From that point forward, one of my main goals has been to help Christan walk again. Together, our mission has been to raise awareness about spinal cord injuries and fundraise for the first clinical trials in the United States for a cure. I’ve spent much of my time getting educating about spinal cord injuries and medical procedures that may enable her to walk again. She’s served as an inspiration who’s fueled my fire to excel inside the boxing ring, where I’ve fought professionally and donated my purses to our non-profit organization. This work greatly defines who I am. To date we’ve raised over $350,000.
Know what you want, understand where you are now, and then spend every moment reflecting afterward. Knowing what you want means knowing where you are, and again, the past led you to where you are. Reflecting on all those choices is paramount to understanding where you are now; if you do not know where you are now, how could you realistically know what future you are capable of creating? Remember, the future will come whether you are alive or not. We should take more time to set up the future we want through accurate, timely, and habitual reflective exercises.
Time is ever present. It is all happening at once – past, present, and future. If the past is the beginning of the convergence, please spend an appropriate amount of your time reflecting on it instead of worrying so much about the future. Your now, in it’s simplest terms, is a compilation and a continuation your past. Reflecting on your past is the key to your future success, as it allows you to understand who you are presently.
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