After eating lunch at my favorite Chinese restaurant this past weekend, my fortune read “Live each day as though it were your last.”
That fortune got me thinking about this cliché phrase we’ve heard growing up. To live each day as if it were our last.
A personal development course from a few years ago told me that the real gift in our lives is not what we accomplished in the past or the plans we have for the future. But rather, it is the present moment. We should live 80% of our lives in the present moment, 10% in the past, and 10% in the future.
We can become more present in the moment by visualizing that today is our last day in this world and we can die this evening, not waking up again. However, we are given a gift each morning when we wake up because we have another day to live in this world.
This concept of living each day as if it were my last took years to fully understand, especially when I was in a total rut back a few years ago. How the can I be present in this very moment and find my inner peace when I’m sleeping in the living room of my mother’s one bedroom apartment, jobless, without a supportive group of friends? All while my peers have their own places, working in jobs with senior-level engineer roles, and getting married.
What did I do wrong?
This past Sunday’s gospel tells the story of Jesus’s Resurrection, in which Jesus makes His presence known to His disciples. Thomas, one of His disciples who did not yet see Jesus, did not believe that Jesus had Risen from the dead. Thomas said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Jesus later appeared before Thomas, and said, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
How can we be present in this very moment and find our inner peace when we do not have the results we want in? How many of us are like Thomas, only willing to believe that miracles happen when we see it for ourselves?
The past few weeks have been quite an emotional roller coaster. From getting engaged, to preparing for marriage, to paying taxes, to balancing work and travel, all while figuring out how all these moving parts will come together as smoothly as possible?
How can I find inner peace when I’m hardly saving any money with a mortgage, car, food, travel, personal development, and upcoming wedding expenses made even more difficult with rapid inflation and more than a third of my salary going to taxes? Spend less? Nah. Time to ask “How Can I Afford It?” again 😉
Living in the present moment and finding our inner peace is a process. There are days we don’t feel like taking action because our fears cause us to have the case of impostor syndrome – the feeling of being unworthy and not good enough.
We often distract ourselves with vices, such as eating sweets, drinking alcohol, and watching Netflix to find a semblance of living in the present moment and inner peace. However, those vices only provide temporary relief by numbing the pain. Doctors and psychologists often prescribe medications to treat those symptoms, but not provide the cure.
Noy Sauce’s cure (with consultation from actual life experience, personal development courses, and coaching) is:
We find our inner peace through faith, action, and gratitude.
Two weeks ago, I visited my aunt, whom I call Mama, in Colorado for a few days to spend time with her for her 70th birthday. While I worked during the day (hooray for working remotely!), I spent the evenings with her and family.
For her birthday, we attended morning mass and ate brunch before I logged in for work. After work, we went bowling. She was an avid bowler for more than 25 years, participating in bowling tournaments around the country. It was her first time bowling in more than 10 years and it was great to see her score a couple of strikes. For dinner, we ate pizza and chicken wings from Pizza Hut.
As I got older, I realized that although I cannot repay my Mama for all the love and support she showed me the past 20+ years, the best gift I can give her is my time and presence.
Spending time with her was the first time in a while I found inner peace, even with all that was going in my life.
Me bowling back in 1998 (left). Bowling with Mama in 2022 (right).
We make plans and have faith that we will accomplish our goals. Most plans fail in the first few steps and it is up to us to adapt and make changes so we will still reach our goals. We do so by continuously taking action. And when we want to raise our hands, ready to give up in frustration and resignation, we express gratitude for being in this moment, thankful for being healthy to still take action.
When we pray, whether it is the Rosary or through meditation, we are in the present moment and find our inner peace. We get out of our own ways and focus on lifting up our problems to someone who can handle it better than us.
My Mama would tell me that when “our moral compass gets straightened” with the help of faith, action, and gratitude, we are ready to move forward.
We are worthy and good enough.
We found our inner peace as if today is our last.
You are the miracle.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for teaching us about having faith, taking action, and expressing gratitude even when our lives seem like a mess. For it is through faith, action, and gratitude, we find our inner peace. We’re sorry for having doubts, feeling unworthy of fulfilling our hopes and dreams. We pray for the Grace to be patient and humble as we strive for our inner peace, because amazing things will happen regardless of what happens in between. As St. Francis of Assisi would pray,
Make us a channel of your peace, where there is hatred let us bring your love.
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord, and where there’s doubt, true faith in You.
Make us a channel of your peace, where there’s despair in life, let us bring hope.
Where there is darkness, only light, and where there’s sadness, ever joy.
Make us a channel of your peace, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving of ourselves that we receive, and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.
In this we pray, Amen.
The cover photo was taken when I visited my Mama in Colorado by myself as a nine year old in the summer of 1998.