For Now Quotes

“On my last walk, I arrived at the beach just as the sun was being swallowed up by the horizon, at the edge of the sea. I allowed the twin feelings of melancholy and joy, sadness and awe to settle, and waded into the water. I dunked my head and flipped over and floated on my back. Deep breaths, eyes closed. And then I had one of those moments that we promise to remember, but always forget; one of those moments that can save our lives. It was a sense of being completely alone and completely connected. Of missing everyone and everything and nothing, absolutely nothing at all. Of being utterly bereft and entirely fulfilled. And I understood, for that moment, for that life-saving moment that I’ll soon forget, what it means to be alive. That life is a balancing act between the things we long for and the things we have, between contentment and being restless for other, for more, between gratitude and self-pity, between the draw of hope and the pull of despair. And somewhere amidst all of this, amongst the chaos of conflicting emotions that make up the human psyche, at some place that’s at its centre only in a metaphorical sense, there is a state of peace. Not neutral, because the contradictions don’t cancel each other out, but balanced. A state of being aware of the feelings on either side, but not participating in them, of feeling both the draw and the pull and staying put. Of experiencing everything and nothing. That’s how I felt, for a moment, as I floated in the sea on my back. That’s what I promised myself not to forget.”
― Daphne Kapsali, For Now: Notes on living a deliberate life

“So what does it mean, to live a deliberate life? I think it means to actually live your life rather than letting it slip past or slide over you; to be a thing that happens to this world instead of just letting things happen to you or despite you. To stretch out towards the horizons and trust that your life will expand to contain you. To step into each day with eyes and mind a little more open, so that you can allow for extraordinary moments to break through the mundane, so you can notice them when they do, and to collect them so that you never have to wonder what it's all about. To be a little more open-hearted and let the good things in and give the good things out. To be deliberately positive, deliberately happy, deliberately alive to all this life brings; to put a deliberate twist on your story so that it takes you where you want to go. To never dismiss an extraordinary moment as being too tiny, and to let for now be enough, until it isn't. Until you're ready to move on and change your mind.

We're allowed.”
― Daphne Kapsali, For Now: Notes on living a deliberate life