Silhouette of human looking up at the stars

There is enough beauty and goodness in this moment, as it is

This isn’t necessarily a new revelation for me, but somehow I’ve become more aware lately of how much time I spend wanting to get to a different moment than the one I’m in. The one I’m in is either too boring or too challenging in some way. I need to numb out of it in some way. Or I need to focus on some other past or future moment to escape it.

This habit of mine causes a lot of needless resistance and suffering.

What’s emerging for me lately feels like what might need to be a lifelong practice. Somehow, it feels like one of the core lessons I’m here in this life to learn.

What I’d so like for myself is to truly believe and practice that there is enough beauty and goodness in this moment, as it is. I practice that simply by noticing whenever I am in resistance to this moment, dropping whatever I’m doing, and breathing into myself until it clears. I imagine each breath as the universe filling me with life and inspiration. I remember that simply being able to breathe and be alive is a truly impossibly great gift.

So far, this strategy is 100% effective. I’m not saying that I don’t always remember to do it or that I don’t sometimes succumb to some form of numbing out. But so far, there is no resistance or suffering that hasn’t eventually passed when I simply keep breathing into it for long enough.


Coach, writer, and recovering hustle hero. I help purpose-driven humans do good in the world in dark times - without the burnout.


More Antiheroes' Blog posts


  • Hollywood McMyth

    Hollywood McMyth

    The hero's journey, it turns out, is not as universal as we imagine. It is a Western, individualist story dressed up as one. It is,…


  • The hero’s journey

    The hero’s journey

    Joseph Campbell's 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces argued that many of humanity's most famous stories share a common narrative blueprint that resonates…


  • Burnout for the purpose-driven

    Burnout for the purpose-driven

    The elusive "social impact" has just become another object of our lust and greed. And when we can never quite achieve enough impact, the burnout…