Living In The Present

I sometimes struggle with living in the present. I am planner and like to have goals and dreams for the future that I work towards, I think it makes you a better person. Sometimes the constant looking towards the future can be bad because it leaves you a little dissatisfied with the present.

At the beginning of the year hubby was accepted to graduate school and hoped to start this past summer. After evaluating the costs and funding options, we decided it just wasn't possible right now. He went back and forth about whether the program he chose, while interesting to him, would lead to the best employment opportunities. We let it fall to the back-burner, but it kept coming up. How great would it be for my hubby to get a Masters in Biomedical Engineering from one of the top medical schools in the country?

I fretted about how we'd pay for it and if it was the best career move for him? I heard him say over and over how much he wanted to go to graduate school. A few weeks ago an interesting thing happened, I said, "go for it", do what you need to do to start school next summer, we'll figure out how to pay for it.

This was a big leap for me because we are not interested in student loans, both hubby and I have a TON of student loans and other debt from our undergraduate degrees. We are focused on getting out of debt, saving, and buying a home. Taking out more loans will put us further from our goals, not closer, but somehow we'll make it work.

It will be 2013 before hubby is done with school, who knows how long until we can meet our financial goals, and at least 4-5 years out before we can realistically have a baby, but you know what? I'm okay with that. I am trying to keep perspective and remember it is no way to live being dissatisfied with the present and only focusing on the future.

Today's a gift, that's why it is called the present, so instead of focusing on the future (or the past for that matter) I am going to celebrate today for what today is and enjoy every moment I have.