What would you tell your younger self?
As I was writing and reflecting on that idea this morning, I wondered what would I tell myself when I was an undergraduate at Brigham Young University? I was newly married. My whole life was ahead of me. (Even though, at the time, it felt like I was so far behind everyone else. I went back to finish my bachelor’s degree when I was twenty-five.)
I hadn’t had my first real job. I had bussed tables in a penthouse restaurant in Seattle. I had waited tables at a restaurant in San Francisco. I had spent two years on the back roads of West Virginia as a missionary.
I had switched majors from civil engineering to construction management to art history to business. I had accumulated so many credit hours, part of my acceptance into the business school included my signing a contract stating that I would stay in the business school and not take any non-required classes. Okay.
I had met Martha and gotten engaged. (Nine days after we were set up on a blind date.) We had gotten married. We went on a honeymoon driving south down through Bryce Canyon, Zion’s National Park, and on to San Diego. Then a day in Tijuana, Mexico.
Martha and I got our first apartment together. She got pregnant. Twice. Our first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Our second pregnancy, our son Benjamin, came eleven weeks premature. He spent months in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit before coming home on oxygen.
I felt like I had so many decisions to make. I needed things to work out. And yet, I didn’t have any jobs lined up after graduation. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with my business degree. I had majored in marketing, but most of the jobs I saw that looked interesting required a masters degree. With a bachelors degree in marketing, there were sales jobs. I had mixed feelings about that.
What would my present self tell my approaching-graduation self?
Just Breathe.
It will all work out. Breathe.
Why just breathe?
Since those anxious days at the end of my undergraduate days, many miles have passed under the bus of life.
Just breathe, though, is about more than trusting things will work out.
Since those anxious days, I have come to practice meditation on a daily basis. Not at first, but gradually meditation became one of the first things I do when I arise in the morning.
Since then I’ve had many more decisions to make. Many more struggles and successes.
We live in the Information Age where if I enter “Anything” into Google, I get 1.76 billion results. “Nothing at all” has 1.62 billion results. Even “there is a deer in my car” yields 112 million results!
With all the information and decisions there are to be made in life, it’s so easy to be overwhelmed.
Yet, if we just take a deep breath – Inhale. Exhale. – our attention returns to the present moment. The distance between us and those millions and billions of search results and decisions dissipates.
Returning our focus to the present breath gives us space from which we can view the busyness of life from a comfortable distance. Just breathe.
Invariably, as we return our focus to our present breath thoughts will cross the stage of our mind. There will be ideas, concerns, distractions that cross the stage. Just breathe.
As we focus on breathing, we return to our comfortable seat. We notice the cares of the world from a distance. They’ll still be there when our meditation ends. For now, just breathe.
When you return to the cares of the world, you’ll be in a major better place.
Have you tried just breathing?