I have had this two-word phrase in my mind many times.  Living deliberately is something to aspire to in this fast-moving culture we live in.  Oftentimes, I imagine myself living in my mother’s generation. Growing up in the 1930’s and 1940’s, people lived a less complicated life and it was easier to live in the moment.  They didn’t have constant outside stimulation to interfere and infiltrate their every move.

Electronics and devices didn’t exist.  Most people had one radio in the family.  When people first got telephones, it was on a party-line. Wealthy people were the only ones who had a car.  Television became available after World War II, but not everyone had one. My folks bought their first TV in the early 50’s.  Many people were poor. But they were rich in experiences and had close relationships with neighbors and in their communities.  Comradery was real. Because of all these things, it was natural to “make your own fun,” as my mother would say. In this scenario, living deliberately was a natural occurrence. It just happened.  It was life, pure and simple.

Today, living deliberately is almost counter-culture.  Our culture seeks to distract, sell, encourage consumerism and brainwash us with the message that we need things and money to have a “good life.”  Even when we “retire,” we find ourselves busier than ever. We don’t have neighborhoods where we know people the people that live on our street. We don’t have a community built into our neighborhoods. 

So much of this is understandable.  But I think we’ve lost much of the desire to live deliberately.  We need to create an environment where this is possible. We need to ditch the electronics  other distractions, at least part of the time. There are many wonderful inventions and innovations to make life easier, but do they always?  Or, do we just find different things with which to busy ourselves?

I have come to crave silence, because it allows me to think or not think.  I can pray or meditate and maybe find the answer to exactly what I want to do, and then do it, deliberately.  To be fully “in the moment” and just be where I am, fully conscious of the “now” I am in.  That’s living deliberately. To me, that is a more genuine life. That is what we can choose to do, if we want to, and not be vulnerable to the winds of change.  If we’d like to, we can decide for ourselves what we want to do and do it in our own time and our own way, by living deliberately.