Practice what you post

This morning I woke up and practiced what I had posted yesterday. I woke to the potential of the day.

The numbers on the digital clock next to the bed read 6:24. I lay there and watched them change. 6:25. Perhaps 6:26. I don’t remember. I had seen the potential of the day and I was transformed. I rose to meet that potential. And I glimpsed my own potential as well.

Maybe it’s just brain hacking. Maybe it’s a kind of a psychological placebo effect. Maybe it will wear out in a few days. But this morning, when I took the time to realize—no, just to appreciate—the potential in the day and in myself, I felt—what? Peace? Power? Connectedness? Holiness? Purpose? Meaning? There is probably no word for the feeling (or any other feeling), but those are the words that had come to mind. Those are the words that had risen out of the depths of my unconscious in response to my intention to “find a word to describe this.”

Another morning miracle.

I changed my description as I wrote and thought about the previous paragraph—from “realizing” the potential to merely “appreciating” it. (Nothing “mere” about appreciation, I think as I edit this. But that’s another story.) But I was wrong. I was realizing the potential. Or, more accurately, the potential was being realized. My brain changed. Or my mind. Or me. Whatever it was, something had changed. The universe had changed. And those changed things—whatever they were—were, in fact, a partial realization of the day’s potential, and my potential.

And some of that potential is now made manifest in this growing and evolving blog post. (And more is manifest as I edit it, changing the present tense that I, the author, had used to the past tense that seems more appropriate to me, the editor.)

And to you who read this, I suggest, I request, I ask: stop for just a moment and look at the potential in your day, in your life. I started to write “look for the potential,” but it seemed silly. You won’t need to look for it. You’ll simply need to stop not-looking and not-seeing. The potential is there. It has always been there and mostly been unobserved, unacknowledged, unappreciated. It’s sometimes been realized, or you would not be here. (You are here!) But there’s so much more.

Look at that potential. Consider. There is potential you might make manifest in your next decision, your next action. There is potential that will grow or shrink because of the steps you take over time. Future You could wake up to even more potential than Present You is capable of perceiving.

Consider the potential of the people around you. Consider the potential you have the potential to catalyze—with your words, your actions, the way you bear yourself. Consider what you—Present You—could do to bring about change in the world.

Glorious is the world I see before me. The more I look, consider, reflect, the more potential I see. And as I write I notice how many words and phrases have potential worlds within them — that last sentence that could have pages explaining it. There is so much potential packed in so many phrases. In so many words.

And now it’s time to take this draft—a potential blog post—and make it real.

It takes a bit of sacrifice—another world in a word. I have to stop writing, which this morning is a joy. I will have to face and overcome, a series of mechanical obstacles. [Ed: And I have] And then some of the day’s potential will have been actualized. And the Present Me who wrote this be gone. A better Future Me will hit “Publish” and then rise to meet the new potential that appears before him.

Note: no drugs were consumed in writing this post. It just seems that way.

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