JUST FOR TODAY…
"You can't do everything. But you can do anything, one thing at a time."
-Alex Mandossian
When I was 25, I changed an entire outfit (unmentionables included) while driving a car with a manual transmission on the swervy country roads of the midwest.
I will chalk this up to tardiness, ridiculousness, and absolute conviction in multitasking. At some point, I dropped most of the tardiness, some of the ridiculousness, and none of the desire to do many things at once.
Making peace with doing one thing at a time took
TIME (a lot of time, actually)
&
PATIENCE (with my own impatience).
What inspired me? THE REIKI PRINCIPLES.
Through the end of our year, I'll be sharing each of the Reiki Principles with our community. They are full of wisdom and simple truths that can serves us all...
And they begin with these words...
JUST FOR TODAY.
These words ground and root me into present with ease.
Let me take on today, JUST FOR TODAY.
How do I want to feel? What is happening in these 24 hours that matter? What would I like to accomplish within those hours that ? How can I contribute meaningfully to my work, myself, and my relationships today?
JUST FOR TODAY.
I can look at my one day in a new light...focusing and appreciating that I am going to be present for my day. This means that trying to tackle too many things at once no longer aligns with my desire to move through my day with intentionality. This means no more driving/clothes changing mashups...
I love making lists...the longer the better. I call my master list the MEGA LIST. It is filled with both short term and long term TO DOs. It's on cute paper, is neatly written, and if I look at it too much, gives me heartburn. And that's because when I place my focus on the M.L. and on all of the tasks I want to complete, I'm taken out of today. It may have "worked" for me when I was 25, but thanks to the Reiki Principles and my journey toward living a full and present life, it no longer serves me!
In the past few years, I've taken to perusing the MEGA LIST, choosing 1-3 items, and jotting them down on a post-it....a Just For Today List. The ML would then be tucked away, and I would take task by task until I completed the JFT List. Then I could swipe 2-3 big, fat lines through my accomplishments, celebrate my achievement, and then decide if wanted to tackle more from the ML.
This has been a practice I have maintained since 2020, and I am so deeply grateful to have this in my self care toolkit. This practice has brought peace and presence into my life. In a world that works so hard to distract us, let us build a ritual the encourages the EXPERIENCE of being present for each moment of our lives...
JUST FOR TODAY.
