A few days ago, I received an email from someone thanking me for my last post. This individual needed the reminder that we have the power to make changes in our life. As I thought about this email, it made me think about what keeps us from making those changes. It seems that so many of us know what we want or need to change in our lives. Most of us even know how to make that change happen in our lives. Yet despite all this, we make excuses as to why we cannot make those changes now or make the decision we will make that change in three days. The only problem was that often times those three days turn into three decades.
Many of us have this same attitude when it comes to getting out of bed in the morning. It’s not that you don’t have things to do, you have plenty to do, even on the most mundane of days, there is plenty of stuff to do. You have to go to the bathroom, take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, fix something to eat for breakfast, grab whatever you need for the day. You know you really do need to do all this, but the truth is you really don’t want to get out of bed.
It’s not that you don’t want to get up; it’s just that you want a few more minutes, so you hit the snooze alarm to prolong the sleep. Just a few more minutes. It really won’t matter. You tell yourself, I can still get out of here on time. You really just need a few more minutes to stay in this state of semi-consciousness. You know that you need to get up and get going, but you just want to stay in that daze for a few more minutes. So you hit the snooze alarm one last time, promising yourself this time is going to be different. You might even tell yourself that the next time the alarm goes off; you are really going to get up and get going. You just need these last few minutes, just one more time.
Throughout time, there have always been people who have just wanted to live their lives without making any transformative change. Some of us can talk the talk, but we do not necessarily walk the walk. The other day I went out to eat with a friend of mine who told me this time she was serious about changing her eating habits. We both have significant amounts of weight to lose. So the server came and I ordered a tossed salad with a light dressing and water and a side of cottage cheese. My friend ordered a double bacon cheeseburger, French fries, and a large soda. They were not walking their talk. In one breath, she was telling me she needed to change this eating habit and at the same time, she was hitting the snooze alarm on change. When we hit the snooze button, we are simply procrastinating working on changes in our physical, emotional, financial, or spiritual lives.
So what are you hitting the snooze alarm on in your spiritual life? Have you not wanted to hear something the Infinite Presence trying to tell you, so you just hit the snooze alarm? Maybe you are struggling with doing some work in your own personal spiritual journey, so you just hit the snooze alarm. Maybe you are struggling with moving forward and doing whatever it takes to have a clearer sense of what the Infinite Presence is calling you to do with your life, so you hit the snooze alarm. So how many times have you hit the snooze alarm in your life? How many of you know you should have shut the alarm off and gotten up a few snooze alarms ago, but you just weren’t ready to wake up. It is time for each of us to dismantle the snooze alarms in our life and wake up!