Autopilot Moments

Hugging Trees ~ Happy Valentine's Day

I took a half-day of personal leave from my "regular job" yesterday to catch up on baking dog-treat orders. In between batches, I decided to take Charlie for a mid-week hike and take advantage of daylight! The days are getting longer one minute at a time, but we are still in the dark for our evening walks after work.

We headed out to one of our fave hiking spots and I proceeded to sludge through the snow and ice, head down, with a million things racing through my mind as Charlie happily hopped along sniffing everything. After about a half-mile, I realized Charlie was lagging behind... she was so engulfed in taking in all the sights and smells that she wasn't doing a very good job keeping up with me! As I waited for her to catch up, I became aware of big snowflakes slowly drifting out of the steel-gray sky. They were kind of floating all around me. All of a sudden I realized I had been on autopilot and wasn't paying attention to anything but the bazillion thoughts in my head ~ worrying about how to build my dog treat business so I can be self-employed, how to update my web page, designing labels for my new treat flavors, whether my oat flour would last until my next supply order arrives, etc.

We all have those moments where the busy-ness of life weighs heavily on our minds, when you've driven to work and don't remember actually driving there, or someone is talking to you and you've only heard 5% of what they're saying. Autopilot.

Watching Charlie romp in the snow and breathe in the world around her, instead of thinking about how lonely she'll be tomorrow when I go back to work, reminded me that life is now. Lesson learned from my dog:  slow down and be present in the moment. Don't get caught up in what happened yesterday or what you have to do tomorrow. Your presence in this moment is your present.