What does it mean, as a verb, to matter?  What does matter mean, as a noun?  Merriam-Webster is able to provide simple definitions.  However, I would like to take its definition a bit deeper, using the word in a simple sentence.  You matter.  How often, as we go about our work, living our lives, do we ponder if what we do has relevance in this time and place.  As was sung in the 1966 song “Alfie,” “What’s it all about?” Or by Peggy Lee in the lyrics, “Is that all there is?.”  Is it a wonder we ask ourselves just where and how we each matter, now, today?

Just For Today … Matter.  Whether you are a stay at home Mom, the leader of a large company, or simply a person beginning their journey of life … Matter. As you go about doing whatever you do today, feel that what you are doing has purpose, no matter how small and insignificant you may see your doing.

In the history of time there was a period when time was calculated mechanically through interlocking gears.  The Swiss became masters in providing precision time with watches where pieces integrated with each other so precisely, those who wore a Swiss watch were in tune 24 hours a day.  Every gear of a Swiss watch was relevant.  If the smallest piece deep inside began to malfunction, the watch would become unbalanced, and the time, inaccurate. 
 
Living is a well synchronized watch. We each are a part of what makes this moment in time precise. Whether you feel to be a major gear, or one so small seemingly almost invisible, what you do, who you are, today, matters.  Each of us makes the gears of life turn.  Without each, and every one of us, the mechanism of life ceases to move as it is meant to.

So today, as you go about doing what seems mundane, rote, do what you do feeling it matters. That your life matters.  That you matter.  And what you do brings clarity to the complexity that is our world.

It is dark.  The sun has yet to make its appearance.  The house resonates of night sounds while I sit in wait for my thoughts to give voice this new day.  New Day … I pause in reflection of what these two words together represent.  New Day.  Every morning as I open my eyes, from my night’s repose, I am given a brand spanking New Day.  A sunrise that has never been seen before.  For while the sun creeps over the horizon to once again display its brilliance, today’s is a unique experience, one in all eternity.
  
Just for Today view the day through the eyes of it being a … New Day. Whatever has been, is gone – forever.  Whatever might be, an eternal illusion.  Let today begin as a blank canvas to be painted as you choose.  Whatever you may think, today is not the same as yesterday.  You may be going to the same place of work. You may be feeding the same family breakfast. You may be caring for the same loved one.  However, what lies before you will be unique, never to have happened before, and never to be experienced again.  How valuable every moment of this day is to you, is what you bring to it. How will you include yourself in everything that takes place today?  No one can paint your canvas for you, if they do they are painting theirs.  You might be in the picture, but it is not your picture.

Yes, there are those who would say there are limitation as to what can be painted.  These limitations are your tools.  To ponder wishes of different brushes or paint colors stunts and stymies creativity.  The artist creates with what is before them. So, create this New Day with whatever surrounds you.  A painting you can, if you so choose, make as beautiful as you wish.

Today view everything as if for the first time. Whether it’s the path you take on your morning walk, or the sounds you hear as you stop for coffee on your way to work and even in what you see as the day-to-day tedium. You will not replay yesterday.  No matter how you may try, there are pieces of yesterday that will never be again. Today for all that seems the same as yesterday, is a New Day. It will be different from any other day you have had to date and the tomorrows that have yet to be painted. 

Wherever you are in our life.  Whatever you are doing. Today is an opportunity.  A hope to be part of the life picture you envision for yourself.  The only one who can truly paint that picture is you.   So, as you go about preparing for the day, view every moment as the first time because it IS the first and only time you will experience this New Day.

Fantasy is a wonderful thing.  With the reality (whatever it is) we face all the days of our lives (Yes, a nod to the soap opera lover.), a reprieve into the world of fairy tale endings, right over might, and wishes come true does wonders for the psyche and the soul.

The other day after a particularly harrowing day of tweets, notices in the mail, and yet another robocall cautioning identity theft, I escaped to (I confess) viewing an episode of "Once Upon A Time."  Good overcoming evil.  The hero(ine) finding love. The wicked, whatever, getting their come up'ins.  (I wonder where that phrase originated.)  In all this fantasy, it came to me that an aspect of reality flows in the tales of dragons, aliens, and wishes come true -- hope. The main character (To those who remember their high school writing class, the protagonist.) has hope.  The belief that everything will work out in the end ... "And if it is not alright, it is not the end."Hope for an unknown future that in the present moment seems completely implausible.  

What defines hope? Merriam-Webster has its definition, yes. However, from all my indulgence into the arena of fantasy, the following sounds truest:

Hope is ... H

Hanging on.  That no matter the trial, no matter the set back.  The hero(ine) hangs on, keeps going.

Hope is ... O

Opening up.  Whatever they are given, come up against, the hero(ine) remains open for what is yet to be seen.

Hope is ... P

Pondering possibilities.  In a tale of fantasy there appears, when least expected, a possibility.  An open door behind a hidden curtain.  A minor character having immense powers waiting for an opportunity to use them.  Whatever, the hero(ine) never lets go of possibility being there.

Hope is ... E

Engaging life.  Throughout a story, the main character continues to live life as it unfolds. Boldly going where ... (ok, I am getting a bit carried away.)  Yet, still, the path is taken, the meal eaten, the new friend, found through the trial, embraced.  The lead character continues to be actively involved in life.

So today ... Just for Today ... whatever challenge or trial you may encounter, face it with hope.

P. S. In the episode I was watching the heroine shares with a troubled soul, "Hope is a choice. 

How often do you find yourself reminiscing a past experience, reliving a time that made you smile, enjoy your life?  Or what about the times you spent daydreaming a future, creating an image that made you smile and ponder how you would be enjoying life? 

Moving back … and forth … from where you stand is a swing we all have found ourselves on.  Sometimes you find yourself wanting an escape from a struggle you are facing.  Other times you want to fantasize a future that has you exceeding the trials you presently toil through, triumphant in your achievements.  Either a return to the past or flight into the future, this swinging has you unable to connect with where you are, with what is in front of you, and smiling, enjoying, our life NOW.  

Whatever your current challenges are, positive or negative, this moment you occupy holds the pieces that will move you out and away from what has you struggling and/or to where to go to reach your goals, smiling and continue enjoying living all the way to the end.  The challenge is to be present with joy.  

If you go to the past or dream of the future you are unaware of where you are and the joy and pieces that exist right here.  Unable to see the pieces in front of you, the happiness of the moment, how will you gain what you need to get where you want to go?

Today … just for today … be where you are and … feel the delights in this moment and look for those pieces of tomorrow that are right in front of you.  Here, now, in this moment, lies that which brings you out of your struggle and fortifies your opportunities … You simply need to be just where you are.  

Apophenia

Definition: The tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas).

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This word, apophenia, came into my nomenclature for the first time while listening to a conversation on children and the Internet.  Upon hearing the word, I envisioned a typical Google search that has you wrinkling your nose and go, Huh?, when you Googled yoga and the suggested links that show up are about goats.

It had me pondering how true the joke about “Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon” has become as a result of the interconnection of objects and ideas that the Internet reveals. One could almost say it seems Google shows us that all things are somehow connected.  This had me wondering is there also an interdependence of things, ideas and more so individuals? 

As I thought about my life, the individuals that form my circle, and the community and events that color that circle.  I could feel the connections and wondered as to our interdependence.  I began to understand that no matter how strong I am; how independent I feel; how self-direction I believe I am, in reflection and honesty, I saw that the connections I have naturally flow to interdependence with others.  And, that this interdependence empowers me in my strength, my independent, my self-direction.  

Whether it is the environment/community one lives in; the words and shared thoughts of those one lives and works with; and the systems that support facets of our life that provide the time and structures we need, each of us is connected and dependent on others to be.  No matter how faint we feel that interdependency is.  (I hear baby goats walking up and down your back is quite relaxing.  Though in total disclosure, I have yet to experience goat yoga.)
Just for today, be aware of your strengths, your confidences, your self-reliance and ponder where and how they are connect with another, your community, an event.  Feel the strength of that interdependence and how it empowers you to be … You.

Many think today's world offers more challenges than life did 100 years ago.  All the decision and choices leave us wanting to retreat to where we feel a sense of security, a sense of stability. Places where things are comfortable. Where we can depend on something.  Where we know something will be "right." It is an aspect of being human. We desire security and stability around us.  It is, I suggest, why we form communities.  Yet I ask you, while that may be an aspect of our humanity, is it what brought us to where we are today?

I would suggest that as challenging as the times we live in are, what we have accomplished in the existence of civilization, and what we have yet to accomplish, comes from those individuals who reach passed stability and security, and a present definition of things, i.e. "the world is flat."  Individuals who dared to explore what might exist outside their comfort zone.

So today - for the next 24 hours - I ask you to touch the other side of your comfort zone.  I am unable to take credit for this statement.  In a podcast on running, the person being interviewed shared her experience of running her first marathon.  As is happens, she "hit the wall," wanted to stop, felt she just couldn't go on.  In that moment, that edge of what she knew, something inside asked her to reach just a bit farther and finish the race - Run time, how she went about finishing the race became secondary to crossing that finish line, the other side of her comfort zone, simply doing it.

As you go about your day, doing whatever it is you are doing, pause and ask yourself, "Am I doing it to support, reinforce, my sense of security, of stability? Or will I dare myself to reach just a little farther and see what lies just the other side of my comfort zone.

​An incident occurred recently that had me “on trial” for something I was asked to keep confidential for a bit longer. Information I shared sooner rather than later.  (Note as I write this I find myself rationalizing my actions…so human … a topic for discussion at a later time.) Needless to say, I was later confronted for not waiting and breaking trust.  I pleaded guilty, apologized for my actions, and immediately felt a little empty as the trust between this individual and myself felt to have lessened.  Or was it a sense their respect toward me had decreased?  Maybe it was a little bit of both.

The event lead to pondering what lead me to my initial action.   Did I hold a lack of respect for the individual who had shared the information?  Or did I see the person was untrustworthy in the confidentiality of the information? We could debate whether either of these attributes, trust and respect, are at the core to honoring another’s request. 

However, Just For Today when you enter into a conversation, whether it is with a stranger such as the grocery cashier or your partner of 20 years, be aware of the respect and trust you feel in the encounter.  Which comes to you first? Does it matter the order?  How do these values affect the results of your exchange? 

The way we interact with each other in our world today, are respect and trust key to building a relationship, that goes deeper than sharing weather and sports news?  Do all the results we suffer or celebrate begin in conversation that comes from encounters that embrace trust and respect … respect and trust.
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For the next 24 hours assess your trust, assess your respect, for and with those around you; see, feel if maybe, just maybe, a shift in your trust and your respect improves your encounters, your relationships.

​Today I was listening to an interview with Martin Sheehan, (President Bartlett, TV Series “West Wing,” among other things) sharing his lesser known life as a spiritual seeker and activist. During the conversation, he describes being a young actor living on $5 a week in New York City, being able to survive through supplements such as a soup kitchen, which provided him five meals a week. 

He shared that this soup kitchen was run by Dorothy Day, a Pacem in Terris Peace recipient, who went on to become a key figure in the Catholic Worker Movement among other civic activism.  He laughed at sharing this, as he went on to say, “… so I started going there. For months and months, I went there. I had no idea — I could’ve met Dorothy Day, but I couldn’t tell you, because I wasn’t there for any other reason but to satisfy my hunger.”

At this confession, it struck me how many times in our day each of us is around greatness, unaware that we are in its presence.  We are so wrapped up in our own whatever, that the greatness of those around us goes unnoticed, lost in the background of some thing we need, some thing we are doing, some place we must reach.

Just for Today, you are requested to pay attention for the greatness around you.  As you go about your day, pause while you do what you do, go where you go, and look to witness greatness.  

We place our attention on greatness after the fact.  It seems only in the accumulation of actions that someone radiates greatness, i.e. Thomas Merton, Katherine Johnson, to name a couple. The accumulated deeds of people over long life spans; the Dorothy Days, the Nelson Mandelas.  They overshadow the day-to-day greatness so many people exhibit as they go about living a normal life.  

• The mother juggling child care and work yet finding time to cook for her neighbor.  
• The father holding down three jobs to support his family yet coaching his daughter’s softball team. 
• The nonagenarian sustaining their independence and being of value to their community as they enter the twilight of their years.  
• The teenager who gives an afternoon of time for a school buddy to help with football practice. 

It surrounds us every day.  There are so many things, so many ways, that greatness is exemplify on a daily basis.  
It exists in the small gesture.  The older man who holds a door open for the mother endeavoring to get her stroller through the door, while her two-year-old is pulling at her. Appreciate you are viewing greatness in this action as you are beholding two souls connecting, if for just a brief moment.  
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Whatever working you are doing this day, notice the person next to you as they reveal generosity of spirit or a solution that is just perfect or a perspective that makes so much sense.  For this twenty-four hour time period, you are asked as you go about your day, pause and see the greatness in the every day. 

​There was a reflective post on FaceBook this week.

Later, listening to a podcast titled “Reimaging the Cosmos,” the interviewee shares a question by Albert Camu on Sisyphus’s fate. (The Guy who forever must roll a boulder uphill.) “Is the ultimate choice to live, regardless of our struggles, or die, ending that struggle?” There appeared a juxtaposition between the FaceBook post and the Sisyphus question, if one makes slight adjustments in the question “Is our ultimate choice to live fully, regardless of our struggles, or to simply exist, until the end of our struggles?”  

There are those who's opinion is death is out of our control.  When we will die, is that mystery we are unable to answer, whether by suicide or old age or accident. However, how we choose to live is ours and provides a perspective that does give each of us a vibrant choice.

Today, for the next 24 hours, see what giving fully to living offers.  Whether it is the joyous action of playing with a child, or the stressful event of having to do something over again.  Give to the action or event fully, with awareness of what can be gained from the experience.  Move through the action or event with all you can bring to it.

When a day seems overwhelming, and you want to stay in bed, pull the covers over your head and retreat, this is living as you have made a choice.  It is in what you do from there that determines whether you are choosing to exist or be alive.  In the moment choosing to crawl back into bed may be the best thing for you, staying there for days on end can initiate simply existing.  

As you go through your days you can choose to live as completely as possible or simply exist?  This is where the picture and podcast are connected.  Your living is based on how you choose to perceive your life.  You can choose to see it as simply another struggle to be dealt with or view each experience for its nuances because … you have survived 100% of your worst days.  You will get through this one. 

Just for Today, embrace what is happening around you as something to learn from, something you will overcome. 

As the year reaches it halfway point, it feels there is a growing meanness in society.  It seems the first reaction to something is to go to the harshest thought on another’s behavior or action.  People seem to see things as too this or too that.  This day’s request, you are asked, Just for Today … to watch and observe where meanness lies in the places you live, your life, in yourself; and spot how it germinates and grows.

Meanness – The desire to cause pain for the satisfaction of doing harm; Lack of generosity;
Miserliness; Unkindness, spitefulness, or unfairness; Aggressive character;
Viciousness.; Lack of quality or attractiveness; Shabbiness.
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Is there someone you know who’s manager is just a bit more open in their prickliness?  In the grocery cashier line, is the customer ahead of you less patient with the cashier’s accent?  As you move through the day today watch and listen for when you or others are in the action of being disparaging to another either directly or in conversation.
 
When meanness confronts you, simply pause and observe.  If you are the source, cease further derogation.  If it is in a conversation look for a door to learning from instead of tearing down.  If out of your scope, again simply observe.

Our lives are full.  We continually juggle as we move through our days.  We are challenged to manage the stress.  The meanness that we encounter magnifies our daily stress.  So, Just For Today, seek out the lightness, the kindness, the forgiveness and observe its affect to your day.