The NOW.

Since February, I have been commuting from Houston to San Antonio and back. In order to spend the weekend with my family, I leave work early on Fridays and drive 3.5 hours to San Antonio, where my wife and kids are still living till school gets out for the year. I wake up at 4am on Mondays, get on the road by 5am, so I can make it to work by 8:30am. It's 202 miles each way and the scenery is pretty boring. We are now into our 4th month of doing this and it's certainly not the easiest thing we have ever had to do, but we make it work.  Other people have it tougher than me.

It’s taxing, but it’s temporary. That's what we keep telling ourselves. It's temporary.

These past 8 months have been pretty crazy for our family. I went from being on my way to having the most lucrative year of my career to being a company budget cut to sitting at home for 115 days (wondering about what's next) to working in a major market at quite possibly the most exciting job of my career and with a bunch of amazingly talented people.  This year will go down as one of the craziest of all time for the Murphy family. It's kind of like a snow globe that somebody continues to shake up and never lets rest. The only routine in my life is that nothing is routine.

The secret to making this work and not going crazy during this challenging time? I choose to live in the moment and not get too far ahead of myself. NOW is what matters. NOW is where I choose to be both physically and mentally.

You can't allow the stresses or the anxiety of tomorrow overshadow what you are experiencing right now. In order to navigate through this time, I have to embrace, accept and consume the now. I have to put my phone down and drink it all in no matter how tempting it is to get wrapped up in the pressure of tomorrow.

When I'm home with the family on the weekend...I AM HOME. Emails can wait. Weekday and work related issues can get resolved on Monday and the stresses that come with Sunday evenings and the worry of tomorrow are not allowed to consume me. I refuse to wish away time.  It's easier said than done, but after I spent 115 unemployed days calculating my next move and sharpening my mental tools, the pieces seem to fall into place and my focus has never been clearer. I still visualize the future, but understand my responsibility to now.

#Tryharder not to wish time away and concentrate on being part of the moment. Understand what your "big picture" in life is and know that uncomfortable phases and chapters are necessary in your pursuits and you must deal with them head on and in the moment.

Yes, I cannot wait to sleep in my own bed, next to my wife of 17+ years, under the same roof as my amazing kids, but this is just temporary and things will soon get back to some sort of normalcy and consistency. In less than 30 days I will reflect upon this time and realize that it helped to strengthen my family and give amazing and needed perspective.  Yet, while I am experiencing this chapter in my life, I will do it with the focus of now.