The Serenity Prayer, Being Here Now, and Wading in the Cesspool

Yesterday, I ran over some glass and noticed a couple chunks of rubber missing from the side of my front passenger tire.  The tire is only a month or so old.  The one it replaced exploded while I was driving down I-75 a month ago.  I'm going to leave Miami around 4 pm today and hope everything will be okay during my long return back to Gainesville.

I haven't written any blogs for some time now.  My writing has mostly been feeble attempts at poetry.  I guess people live their lives in cycles, and now that I have a little time, I would like to express myself in more of a diary form.  

I don't even know what to say to describe the way I have been feeling lately.  I think one's emotional life is important enough to dedicate some words to because it is directly connected to the quality of one's overall life.  I think my basic problem is not accepting what I have to accept.  In other words, everyone has things to do in routine life that they have to do.  Not accepting doesn't just mean refusing to do it, but can also mean not putting forth one's best effort or being lethargic or unenthusiastic about it.  It can mean failing to focus and thus doing a shoddy job.  It could mean one's mind is in another place.  That one is mentally rewinding or fast-forwarding too much because they don't want to be there.  

There are a lot of causes for this phenomena, and it kind of smacks in the face of the famous serenity prayer, which of course requests god to grant the petitioner the strength to change the things one can, accept the things one can't and the wisdom to know the difference.  Sometimes we have the knowledge, but out of stubborn foolishness we don't concede.  Sometimes, we don't know what we can or cannot change and we sit in a stupor of limbo, not appreciating the life around us at the moment.  Other times, we mistake what we can change for what we cannot and surrender to the inertia as real opportunities pass us by.  Still, at other times, we have a "never say die attitude" for a lost cause and never move on with our lives.

I don't know which of the above negative stances has been affecting me more lately, but I suspect they are all acting on me to one degree or another.  The result is probably that I lack appreciation and gratitude for the situations I am being given and thus am failing to "be here now," as the saying goes.  If I was honest, I would have to admit that in nearly every category of my life, I feel like I am barely getting by and doing a sub-par job in the process, I might add.  How can you do your best job at anything if your mind is always somewhere else?

Procrastination has shown it's ugly face more than ever in my life this last month.  As the beginning of a new month is just about here, I feel it is imperative that I get my proverbial act together and start focusing on the things that I can to make my life better, as well as all the people who I have some peripheral influence on, in at least some small way.

Without getting into the details that make a piece of writing so much more interesting (sorry readers), I want to get the hell out of this current rut and start living my life again the way I am used to living it.  If it takes clawing my way out of whatever hole I'm in, then I am committed to doing it.  I have a number of ambitious plans on the agenda and I'm not going to get anywhere with them while wading in the cesspool.  Details and positive updates to hopefully follow...