Life’s transitions are not always easy. Perhaps they are rarely easy. That’s the nature of transition. It’s a change, and it’s most comfortable to continue what we are doing, or remain in our current state.

Even in a ‘bad’ long term relationship, we have our routines, and it can be a lot of work to end it. It can be daunting to contemplate sweeping changes. It’s a lot of work to pick up the pieces and rebuild.

What price would we pay for happiness? Or even the chance of happiness? Or the removal of a source of unhappiness?

Making a change to the exclusion of another person may make us feel bad, but the only thing we were guilty of was trying.

You know how gurus tell us to live in the present moment, with no past and no future? They seem to think that is the path to bliss. It isn’t. In fact, it’s a stupid idea.

I have been living with someone who tends to live only in the present moment. They don’t remember crucial conversations that will impact their future, and the only thoughts they seem to have of the future are delusions.

Our past gives us context. Our future gives us a reason to work at anything.

We do live in the present moment anyway. The past we remember only unfolded as the present, and the future is only present moments that are coming. Life isn’t actually a timeline, though it is easy to think of it as one.

Why be on a highway at all if you didn’t know where you had been and didn’t care where you were going?

Don’t forget your history.

Don’t neglect your future. You will need it one day.

There’s more to life than putting X’s through the grid of a calendar. Float above it and maybe you’ll see that the tightrope line you thought you were traveling was actually a sea of brushstrokes spreading out in every direction.

You can explore and make sense of it if you allow yourself to remember. You can shift your perspective and extrapolate meaning, forgive without forgetting, and chart your trajectory, all from this present moment.