Are We Guaranteed Another Moment?

Disclaimer: This post contains explicit content. Proceeding to the content means you must hold yourself accountable for your own feelings and nature of the content.

Look, this life that you're given is a fucking blessing. It's a fucking gift.

And no matter the season you're in, no matter the darkness you may be currently facing in your life, take a deep breath in. And then exhale. Really focus on the feeling of your lungs expanding and the breath being pulled out from your lungs and the feeling of the air that you're drawing in from your nose. That is a gift.

We live in this funny place of feeling like our next breath is just guaranteed. It's not.

You could slip on the floor the next time you're in the shower. You could swallow a strawberry or grape wrong when you're home alone. You could get impaled by a picnic table umbrella due to a gust of wind picking the umbrella up and launching it through your back as you’ve just walk past it.

There are so many random things that could happen to you that end your life on any moment of any day and here you are, automatically assuming that you're going to step out of the shower alive. You just assume that you're going to finish that grape or those strawberries without them stealing your last and final breath. You just assume that you’re going to survive the walk back to your car from the coffee shop. But the reality is, it is not guaranteed that you will have a next moment. So you MUST learn to savor every single second as if it were your very last.

The next time you step into the shower, focus on the feeling of the water on your skin and the way that it splashes your face as you step in. The feeling of the cold water that's giving you goosebumps. The way that the water slowly starts warming your skin as the hot summer sun does.

Focus on the taste of the juice of the berry that you just bit into. The sweetness, the consistency. We are so quick to just take a couple bites of food and swallow it. What happened to savoring? What if you took a bite and just let it be there? Just savored it? What if you just ran your tongue across all the bumps on the strawberry and tasted the juice in your mouth and just held it there for a moment? Close your eyes. Focus on that. THAT is appreciating that moment like it's your last.

If you knew that the in next 5 seconds, you were going to die, would you hurry up and chew and swallow that strawberry so you could get to the next bite so you could get back to work?

Or would you put the strawberry in your mouth and let it hang out there for 10 seconds even?

If you did that, you would be living presently in that moment as if it were your last.

If you knew that you'd get in that shower tonight and slip and not make it out alive, you would fall in love with the feeling of that water on your skin. You would close your eyes. You would imagine that this water is cleansing your soul. You would imagine that you're floating in the ocean freely like a whale. You would savor that feeling of the cold chill that you get on your skin when the water hits it. If it were your last shower, I promise you those are the thoughts you'd be having. But we are so quick going through life on speed. Going 100 MPH.

Life is so beautiful and so sweet when you slow down and savor every single moment. No matter what moment that is. Even if it's a painful one. Savor it and appreciate the new person you're going to be on the other side of that. You will be a stronger, more loving, more whole, more inspiring person in spite of the pain you're going through right now.

Imagine going for a walk and walking as if you would when you're 95 years old and you've got a cane or a walker.

What if slowing down and savoring every moment that passes as if it were your last is the lesson that we have to learn in life and this is why we age, this is why our bodies break down the older we get? Age forces people to slow down.

What if moments of impact happen to some people in life that on the surface can seem and feel like a curse but it’s actually God's greatest gift? Hear me out. I was in a car accident at the young age of 24. That accident resulted in me living in chronic pain. The chronic pain that I deal with now on a daily basis forces me to slow down and smell the roses (quite literally.). What if that was the lesson I was supposed to learn through this? To slow down and savor each and every moment? I set out to feel between my fingertips at least one flower in nature each and every day. I walk slowly enough to see the bumble bee sucking the nectar out of the flowers I'm walking past. I stop and observe for a few deep breaths before I continue on my way.

What if this is why unexpected moments of impact happen to some people early in life?

Don't let it take an unexpected moment of impact that you live through to force you to slow down.

Don't spend your entire life on fast forward to then wind up 95 years old with your body deteriorating, forcing you to finally slow down.

Can you imagine how much sweeter every moment of your life would be if you learned slow down and touch and smell the flowers as you walk by each day? To watch the bee suck the nectar out of the flower you're walking past? To treat your walk back to the car as if it were your very last walk because little do you know, in three minutes, your time on this Earth expires?

Treat every moment you’re gifted here on this beautiful earth as if it were your very last moment. One day, when you least expect it, it will be.

Can you sit for just 10 deep breaths in and out with your eyes closed and imagine how much sweeter your life would be if you slowed down and truly savored every single moment as if it were your very last?

Make a promise to yourself from this moment forward, every moment you’re gifted here on this beautiful earth, you will live as if it were your very last.

One day, when you least expect it, it will be.

Sending you light and love,

Sophia