The older I get, the more I think about retiring to some place with more trees than people, with streams that flow noisily over rocky beds and paths that wind off into shaded and uncharted land.  It’s a simple sort of plan for retirement – I’d like to wander aimlessly for a while without worrying about getting back to the office any time soon.

What’s funny is that I spent a large chunk of my life growing up doing exactly this sort of exploring.  I lived in an area that was full of trees and trails and places to explore, and I lived a life that was blissfully free of any real responsibility.  “Carefree” would be a pretty accurate if not all together true way to describe my life at that time.  I had cares and worries, I just didn’t…well…care about them as much.  My chief worry was whether or not the cute girl I liked would “like me back,” and the focus of that concern changed every week or so.

So I spent my childhood exploring woods, following trails and generally getting to know my own thoughts and passions and personality on a “one on one” basis (me being the one).  And now, at just barely over thirty (I’ll be thirty-three in October), I’m already thinking I’d like to drop everything and go back to that blissful and unspoiled time, twenty years ago.  It’s funny because I spent so much of that time dreaming of “twenty years from now.”  Looking back becomes looking forward, and you start thinking about ways to make your future more like your past.

Let’s dip into the ol’ corny well for a second -- I believe that every moment has great potential.  I think that every minute of our lives has the same amount of energy and passion and happiness attached to it as any other.  It also has the same amount of sadness and depression and anxiety.  It’s kind of like each moment is the nucleus of an atom, and all these feelings and emotions are the electrons and protons that float in and around it.  I’m not going to make any major assumptions about the level of chemistry or physics everyone has had… but let me say that it’s the stuff other than the nucleus that makes an atom what it is.  The number of electrons floating around in orbit determines its atomic number.  Want to make lead into gold?  Knock about four electrons out of orbit and you have it (hey, send me a private e-mail when you figure out how to do this… I’d like to give it a try!).  The same can be said about every moment of your life.

Life is all about choices.  We make them every moment of the day, whether we’re aware of them or not.  Each moment has the potential to be very positive or very negative, and it solidifies when we make a choice about where our focus should be.  Should we let the chance remark of a friend dictate our mood?  Should we allow a dead car battery to set the tone for our day?  Should a broken belt look throw us into a rage that could cause us to say or do something hurtful?

We make the choice and it’s usually instantaneous, but that doesn’t mean we have to stick to it.  I admit, I have the biggest problem with letting go once I’m mad.  I sometimes let little things get to me in a big way.  In fact, I’m more likely to let the small stuff get to me than the big, truly rough stuff.  But I’ll also admit that when I get ticked off because I stubbed my toe or because someone said something in passing that I took as offensive, it’s me making the choice to be angry.  I’m choosing to let it get to me.  I could choose to let it blow over, but instead I want to rant and rave or hold my silence or huff or whatever other means of expressing my displeasure seems most appropriate.

If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend a film called “What the BLEEP Do We Know?!?”  It’s a great exploration of quantum physics and human nature and it takes a look at how our beliefs and thoughts have an effect on our bodies and the world around us.  One of the concepts they explore is the idea that we can be addicted to certain chemicals that our body produces.   When you’re happy, your body manufactures endorphins and other chemicals that make you feel good.  When you’re angry, your body produces chemicals that increase your heart rate and blood flow and you feel a rush of a different sort.  The film looks at the idea that these chemicals can be addictive, just as if you were using an illicit drug.  You can literally become addicted to being angry.  Your choice to let the small stuff get to you, unconscious or otherwise, may be your way of getting a fix.

When I was a kid, exploring the woods and uncharted paths that surrounded my home, I was free of many of the “addictions” I have now.  The small stuff didn’t bother me, and I didn’t take much notice of the big stuff either.  It’s not that I never became sad or angry or frustrated – I did.  I got depressed and mournful and upset just like I do now.  But I had an outlet for these things back then, and I hope for every moment.  It was unconscious and automatic, but I was choosing to live in each moment, full of hope for the next, and exploring its potential.  Somewhere along the way I lost this automatic reflex.  But I can get it back, and so can you.

They say that every habit takes 30-days.  Thirty days to make it, thirty days to break it.  So here’s what I’m proposing.  Why don’t you join me for the next 30 days in forming new habits and breaking old ones?  We’ll focus on making better choices in each moment of our lives.   Instead of sweating the small stuff, we’ll choose to shrug it off and move on.  It’s going to be tough at first, believe me, but after a while it will start to become second nature.  Practice makes perfect, right?

So e-mail me and let me know you’re taking me up on this.  Let’s work on making every moment better than the last, and choosing to follow through on the potential of every one.  And who knows?  Maybe one day we’ll spot each other trouncing care-free through the woods.  You bring the trailmix.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Editor for ViewOnline Magazine at www.viewonline.com. He holds a Masters in Education and has won numerous awards for writing fiction and non-fiction. You may reach him via e-mail at kevin@viewonline.com. He is living in a moment that hasn’t gotten here yet.