When I stop to think about the who and why of me, I feel the need for honesty, humility and gratitude for every moment of my being. All of them add up to who I am, the Now of me. Being mindful of that, I realize that my story, every bit of it, is always with me.
Socrates wrote, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Someone might have said, even back then, “Who has time?”
As many might say today. But time is not the issue; meaning is, and that’s what matters. To examine one’s life is to search for its meaning.
Fortitude and perseverance are essential for anyone undertaking such a task. Strength and honesty are needed to remember, be mindful of and embrace one’s humanness, all of it, to find the pulse of meaning in one’s story, especially in its painful, shameful parts – those bits which memory tends to shy away from.
That said, what is the role of memory in the meaning of me, of my Now?
In attempting to answer that question I realized it takes time to do so. In my remembering I keep discovering meaning in places and in moments that seemingly had none at the time; others, of course, remain dramatic and unforgettable. But all of them ultimately convince me that the meaning of Now is mostly a matter of awareness and perspective, realizing that self evolves along with the rest of all creation.
The all of me needs not be known by others, but it needs to be owned by me, if only because it tells me, first, to be grateful but, second, that I can do and be better, that what is is mostly about what was and, more importantly, about what will be. Being mindful of one’s story gives meaning not only to the present moment but shapes the meanings of those to come.
Meanwhile, the meaning of every moment is in its mindfulness, many of which find little or none of it. But that insight impacts directly on the present moment and the examined life which tells me every self is responsible for self’s own truth.
Memory, therefore, makes me mindful that the meaning of my Now is in the truth, the whole truth, of me. It is that truth, remembered, owned – and evolving – which, I believe, makes my life – and every life – in all of its humanness, worth living.