Look How Far You’ve Come.

Today we ask that you honor how far you’ve come.

Honor how far you’ve come.

Today, do not think about all the ways you and your life are not good enough.  Do not think about where you are “supposed to be” relative to where you are.  Do not berate yourself for not having come far enough.

Today, you are invited to stop, and take a breath.

Look behind you.  You have traveled a long road to get to where you are now, at this moment.

Can you perceive how far you’ve come?

Can you perceive how much you’ve grown and changed?

Can you perceive how your challenging experiences of the past many years have enriched and deepened you?

Look at how far you’ve come.

Consider who you were a year ago, five years ago, twenty years ago.

Do not judge those Earlier Yous.

Look at them with compassion.  

And honor how far you’ve come.

Many of you believe you do not “do enough” in life.

See how far you’ve come?  Maybe you are doing enough after all.

When someone is in the middle of a long hike, or climbing a mountain, he will always go through periods when he feels like he is not getting anywhere.

But if he could look back from a high vantage point, he could see that he has come much further than he believes.

It is a trick of the human mind to ever focus on the goal, on the end point, so that the getting there seems interminable.  Everything seems to take too long.

In fact, it takes much less time than you think.  It is the fixation on goals and end points that causes time to appear to go more slowly than it does.

The human mind has difficulty making an accurate assessment of “progress,” of distance already traveled.

That is why today, you are asked to take your eyes off your various goals and end points.  Yes, even on the day of “setting resolutions” — you are much better off taking the time to look back, before you move forward.

Before the world starts up and all you can see are your goals and end points and how “you are not there yet”…

… look back and notice how far you’ve come.

Maybe you’ve already arrived, and just don’t know it yet.  Maybe you are exactly where you are supposed to be.