Is This What Nostradamus Felt like?

      One of the driving forces of bipolar is the desire (and ability) to act from a place of pure desire in every moment. Life is always in the 'now', and the decision has no future and no past. It is an incredibly free existence, as long as your decisions have no downstream impact. However, it is easy to imagine how destructive it could be when other responsibilities (job, people, creditors, health) are negatively impacted by a spur of the moment decision. You cannot reason against the disease process, and the damage is found in the aftermath.

      However, recently I have had remote visions that have slipped into my conscience, the likes of which I ever clearly see. A pattern of events that likely would unfold from an impulse decision considered in the throes of a maniacal fit. Where I once only saw the direct moment - "if this, then that", I now have begun seeing a more lateral sequence of events. If I stay up late drinking and carousing, work tomorrow will be challenging (or I may not go in at all). If I buy this thing I don't need now, I will only have to work harder later on to compensate. 

      If I do something to make the wife uncomfortable or unhappy, I will only create unrest within myself in the long run.

      Even though logically I am always aware that actions have consequences, it is only over the past few years I have begun to craft the skill of stopping for a moment to visualize the complete solution. There are times the event is worth it (risking sleep to comfort a friend) and those it is not (closing down the bar with the kids because - I'll deal with the fallout tomorrow!). I'm not sure I would christen this 'maturity' as much as continuing to evolve as a human being and a partner. It feels great to preempt problems I only create myself.

      In action, I choose to take responsibility. In choosing not to act, I do the same. Every memory doesn't need my mark, every purchase doesn't make sense and sometimes the only right reasoning is to do nothing at all. Good things come to those who wait.... Great things come to those who wait for a self actualized goal. The choice to not act is still a choice I make, not a dictate handed down to me by circumstance. Accepting my role instead of playing victim makes all the difference in the world.