it's all up to you

Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present....It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time--for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.

-C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

We are constantly trying to better ourselves to become more Christlike. We will never be perfect here on earth, all we can do is strive for that perfection. All that is expected of us is to work towards bettering ourselves. I am so far from being perfect as is so blatantly seen. I never seem to learn from my mistakes, I continue to make them over and over again. My good friend Brian let me borrow his Screwtape Letters book which really makes you think about the way you are living your own life. Are we letting demons control our actions, thoughts, moods? Anyways, very interesting book, read it.

The above excerpt taken from The Screwtape Letters is my next plan of attack. I've realized that I hold a great deal of happiness in the future. If I don't have something "fun" to look forward to I feel really down. I feel lame and lonely. I have a hard time enjoying the here and now. I take for granted what I have at the moment compared to what I wish I had. I have the worlds greatest friends who freaking rap in the kitchen with me, who send me pirate books and teach me karate, who pick me up on my birthday when I'm feeling super depressed and take me to see the ducks....doing their thing. How could I really desire more when I already have so much. And why do I feel so loney all of the time?

In CES firesides they are constantly telling us girls that not all of us will end up married. This is a huge fear of mine. I can't imagine having to be alone and not do the one and only thing I've always wanted, be a mother. I'm having the hardest time realizing that it's just not my time. I'm being incredibly impatient and it frustrates me. I know that things will happen when they are meant to and I also know that being afraid of my future isn't healthy. My Heavenly Father doesn't want me to be scared, he wants me to embrace what I do have and love every moment.

On October 7, 2009 I wrote myself a note in my cell phone that said:

I need to stop dwelling on the past and wishing for the future. I am apart of the here and now and need to start living it.

This is my continued goal, to love every little seemingly small thing. Right now I love this time to myself to blog and do absolutely nothing. To listen to this music I don't know very well but is actually really good. To laugh everytime this cat jumps up and types nonsense for me. To look out the window at the beautiful trees and sky. To be in freaking Michigan! I love it here! I love this moment, this feeling of not having any worries even though I should. Life is good, and YOU are Amazing!