Every Day is an Opportunity
Updated: Mar 11, 2021
Embracing every moment for a more fulfilled life.
Every day is an opportunity. It’s something we hear over and over and over, but have you given yourself the grace and patience to truly let it integrate in your life?
“Every day is an opportunity.”
We all handle stress quite differently. For some of us, stress is a motivator, for others stress makes us shut down. I’m in the latter group. When my to-do list seems overwhelming, when I’m stressed to the point where I don’t know where to start, I shut down. I don’t just shut down for an hour or a day, though. I shut down until something external gives me the kick I need to start again.
That’s not a very healthy way to handle life.
Rather than putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward somehow, I completely stop. There’s no progress, just spinning wheels. Then the spinning wheels make me feel less than, defeated, for not getting more done which in turn overwhelms and stresses me out more. It’s a vicious cycle until that kick comes. And when I do get the kick to start again, I have to completely start over — all the way back at the beginning — rather than having progress built up.
In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras — the philosophical guide book to yoga — he starts with Atha and ends with Iti. Atha means "begin." Begin somewhere. Take a step toward your goal, your dream, your mission. Its means "again." The two work together — Begin Again. It's a constant call, a constant reminder to alway Begin Again. When life gets overwhelming, when work gets overwhelming, when trying to live life by guidelines — like the Yoga Sutras — gets overwhelming, Begin Again. Every day.
I’m learning that every day is an opportunity. Every day is a chance to start again. Every day is a chance to say, “I allow myself to start over and not judge myself for getting “off-track.”
Every day is an opportunity.
Remind yourself of that. Show yourself the grace, the courage, the bravery needed to let yesterday stay in the past. To let the past teach us, but not dominate us.