I was talking with a family member the other day, musing about how difficult it is to be totally present to what is in front of us.  We were talking about the need to keep our minds sharp, doing different exercises that bring about new connections in the brain for when other ones become disabled or dead.  The allusion in this conversation was to Alzheimer’s, something we are facing as a family.  Somehow this led to us talking about people in general not being present to what is right before them and I made a comment about how many seem to live in the “world of almost”.  

Something  almost happened to them…or that almost happened and imagine what things would have been like if it had come about…or they almost accomplished something…or almost had an accident.  It seems we have a propensity to lean towards what might have been, or what should be, or what could be instead of facing the world head on – as if what is in front of us isn’t all that interesting or exciting.  We get our adrenaline rushes (and crashes) from the possibilities though few of them ever become reality. 

Or, when reality turns out differently than what we wanted it to be or planned it to be if it hadn’t been for … best articulated when we finish our “almost” with a “but this, or she or he…” , we point to something or someone beyond us as the hurdle that took us down.  It’s not our fault that what could have been, didn’t happen.

I remember distinctly when this all first settled within me.  I was involved in a phone conversation a few months back during which I heard a myriad of excited “almost” statements and it was like the veil was lifted in my own heart and mind as I realized how much I myself was caught in that world.  I don’t know what happens to you when that veil gets lifted; for me, my heart sinks into an unusual though familiar “knowing” and my mind becomes very clear – a crisp dawning of awareness. 

Like a camera lens focused on something off in the distance, what is up close gets blurry when you aren’t really focused on it.  When you are living in the “world of almost” instead of the “actual” it is easy to get excited about the possibilities (they seem so clear) instead of excited about reality.  But again, like the camera lens, if you adjust the objective of your sights and focus on what is in front of you, the willingness to look at things (situations or people) differently turns what was mundane (or difficult or daunting or whatever….) into something less so, and the almost into inconsequential speculation that has little influence or attraction.

I have decided to limit the use of the word “almost” in my vocabulary, and simply speak “what is”.  It has forced me to be more tuned in to what is happening in front of me, and even more so, within me.  It has forced me to speak in objective statements, rather than swimming in ambiguities and speculations.  It has forced me to own what I do and say without making excuses or hoping for something other than the “actual”.

I have lost a chunk of my idealism and become rather pragmatic, even somewhat jaded in this move.  Some of my capacity to dream and believe for things beyond what is, has taken some hard hits over the last year and I am a little less inclined to believe in what clearly isn’t happening; I am not so quick right now to open up to possibilities. 

I know that we live in a world that is not as it should be…as it will be some day.  My belief that it can be more now than what it is if we want it to be has been knocked around by the awareness that many really don’t want it to be more.  We prefer to live in the “world of almost” where we can have the excitement without true engagement, and most certainly without cost – especially to our pride.

Yet, at the same time, my move toward the more pragmatic, to focus on the “what is” may in fact be just what is needed for the ideal to happen.  For until we face reality consistently, we will ever look beyond ourselves to the things or people who we want to believe made the possibilities only “almost” instead of “actual”; never owning that we ourselves laid out the hurdles that took us and others down; never discovering what really could have been even in a world that is not as it should be.