Right here, right now

That's all I really have to say, is the title of this blog.

It's a reminder to me (and whoever else needs it) that sometimes, you just need to remember to be right here, right now. I have no idea where the Desiderata came from, but my favourite line in it is this:

"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."

I need to figure out a way to hang the plaque (there are no hooks on the back) because there are other lines in it that I should read more often, but, like I said, the above line is my favourite.

Letting the universe unfold as it should is something I'm struggling with right now. I have all these big plans — where I want to be in a couple years, what I want to be, even who I want to be. Overall, I want to be content. And I feel like I'm so focused on that — daydreaming about how I'm going to get there and what it's going to look like when I do — that I can't be content, right here, right now.

Right now, I'm living in the middle of the prairies. You can walk to the edge of town and see canola fields. You can drive past the limits of town and drive through gorgeous landscapes. Right now, I'm doing exactly the kind of job that I set out looking for when I left school, knowing that I didn't want to be pigeonholed into any aspect of working at a newspaper (just writing, just photography, etc.) In a couple of weeks, I'll start working on a new project that should be challenging to me as a fairly recent journalism graduate.

In the spring, I lamented to a friend that with the seemingly hundreds of copy editing positions available (OK, there were maybe 10 or maybe 15, but that's a lot all at one time) that I was sorely tempted to apply, except for the fact that I want to stay put for a while and I'm done with moving for at least another two years (the moving count for me stands right now at six times in three years). I think he asked why I was so hung up on it, and I said something along the lines that I'm worried I won't know when the perfect job walks up to me, knocks me on the head and says, "Hello, I'm your dream job." His reply? "Yes I worry about that too. Then I realize that I'm 20 years old and not in a hurry."

I almost came back with a retort about being 22 and thus in much more of a hurry, but let the comment slide. Like I said, right here, right now.