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Life is full of moments, and an infinite number of singular moments strung together are what make life, life! However, regardless of how many moments there are, the only place you can be is in this moment. Right here, right now, and the only way to truly live life is in THIS moment. Not the coming moment. Not the one that just passed. THIS moment.
Not much can happen in one second. One second is hard to worry about. But what about 10 seconds? A lot can happen in that amount of time.
Imagine if you lived your life constantly worrying about the next 10 seconds and how miserable you would be.
That’s what most people are doing, although their timelines are usually stretched to days, weeks, months, and years, instead of seconds. But how ridiculous would it be to worry about the next ten seconds? It’s the same thing with extended times or dates.
We worry about an outcome that may or may not happen. And by attempting to live in that future moment in our present, we begin to cultivate worry, fear, anxiety, and depression in the here and now by fixating on something that is not happening right now, and may never happen.
“…The future comes from God, and it is only he who reveals it, under extraordinary circumstances. How do I guess at the future? Based on the Omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve upon the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live towards the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.”
Paulo Coelho – The Alchemist
“Worry is a misuse of imagination”
Unknown
As discussed in “The Only Place You Can Be Part 1” worrying about the future, or only focusing on the past, can lead to undesired outcomes in our personal lives because we are constantly projecting our focus and attention to places in time outside of the present moment.
In some situations, this is okay, because we may need to plan or use a past experience to help guide our progress in the present moment, but living there continuously is not how we are meant to live.
When discussing how we live in THIS moment, we really have to put the emphasis on THIS moment.
Learning to Live in THIS Moment
As Sadhguru, the Indian Mystic explains, THIS moment is all there is. There cannot be any other moment than what you are experiencing right now.
For you, reading this newsletter, can you be in any other moment? When reading this sentence, can you be in any other moment? When reading THIS word, can you be in any other moment?
If you’re fully invested in reading, then no. THIS is the moment. If you’re only partially reading and are distracted by a song, or television, or someone talking, or anything else, then at THIS moment, your attention is divided, but you are still locked to THIS moment.
Being fully present is difficult for most people, especially in today’s society. It’s imperative we begin to understand the importance of being fully present. Remember how just a few short sentences ago I said you cannot be in any other moment than THIS moment?
Guess what? That moment is gone. There’s no way to get it back, you will never again be in that moment. You may share a moment that is similar, almost identical, but it still isn’t the same. In a few minutes, THIS moment right now will be gone as well and you will be experiencing a brand new moment.
Play along with me here. Are you aware of this moment, right now? Not that moment, it’s already gone, THIS moment. Not the one we just looked at, THIS one, this new one. Are you present with it? Not the moment one second ago, this moment now. Not the one you’re considering in a few more moments because you’re tired of the redundancy of me attempting to pull you to this moment to make a point, but THIS moment.
The whole point of thinking this way is to open ourselves up to the idea that there is nothing outside of this one moment. On one side, there are an infinite number of moments we’ll never get back and will never experience again in the same way. On the other side, there is a burgeoning set of moments lining themselves up for our experience, but we cannot experience them without experiencing this moment right now.
Unfortunately, we are not raised or taught this concept, and oftentimes figure it out much later in life. The only moment that truly matters is the moment here and now.
However, many of us treat it with disdain or apathy or nonchalantly, when in fact, this moment is bursting with life. Life can only be experienced in THIS moment. Experiencing life outside of this moment isn’t a true experience, it’s a pseudo-experience.
Living in the past is far removed from the true life experience. Living in the future can be closer, but only if we are consciously working towards building a better future. For most people, their thought projections into the future are full of anxiety, worrying about whatever potential problem they may or may not face.
This isn’t living. This is like imprisoning yourself for crimes you haven’t committed. Energy is wasted in vast quantities by relinquishing it into unknown negative outcomes that you are currently making up in your mind in THIS moment.
Can You Let Go of the Future and the Past and Be Here Now?
Teaching yourself to live in this moment takes time. You must constantly be aware of what you’re thinking. You must be aware of how you feel at any given time because your feelings can manipulate your thoughts into creating more of the same feelings.
How many times have you experienced emotions, positive or negative, just through thought alone? Have you ever thought about a loved one dying and found yourself experiencing a feeling of grief or loss as a result? Have you ever thought fondly of someone you love dearly and experienced a surge of joy and happiness?
Have your five senses ever been triggered and thrust you into an emotional past experience, whether good or bad? Whatever triggered you caused your body to re-experience that situation again, which then drove you to think about the situation, causing you to feel the emotions of that experience at even stronger levels.
Left long enough, and with enough concentration or focus, you could relive that memory as if it’s happening again, right now…but it’s not. That moment is gone, the memory is causing you to live in a pseudo-moment that isn’t real. It may feel real, but it isn’t real.
You are merely allowing it to override the true moment. THIS moment.
Continual practice to stay aware of this moment can have major benefits for you. It allows you to recognize when you’re system is being hijacked to play out dramatized versions of your past or present, which may cause you to experience emotions you’d rather not experience.
Working on this every day can help reduce stress and anxiety because you start to realize that you can’t do anything about those future moments, and you start to realize that maybe those future moments will be different than what you’re expecting.
I can’t control the outcome of most of those future moments anyway. I can plan all I want. I can prepare all I want, but it doesn’t mean those experiences will go the way I planned.
Hasn’t this happened to you any number of countless times? Maybe the overall plan goes how you wished, but how many small changes happened during the in-between of the start and finish?
There have been many events where I witnessed the “successful” completion of the event “just as planned”; however, it only ended that way because of all the people running around during the in-between moments, juggling issues that weren’t supposed to happen. They were not a part of the plan.
What I’m getting at is it doesn’t matter how much you agonize over all the different ways something should or needs to go, it’s never going to go exactly how you hoped it would.
So, why agonize over it in such a way? Why carry around anxiety for something that will need continual adjustments along the way?
Instead, why not let go, plan for whatever it is, and then stay focused on this moment? After all, the entire planning stage is done in this moment, so why not stay here and let the future moment happen when it does?
Focusing more and more on this moment can result in greater peace in your life. Why? Because you stop trying to control everything you can’t control.
A great example of this comes from a time when I was traveling with the company I work for to do some speaking engagements with our partners. It was our first event and I was feeling a little nervous.
What Can I Control Right Now?
During my flight, I was reading Ed Mylett’s book, “The Power of One More” (Clink the link to order if you’re interested in leveling up your life), and there was a section where he writes,
“The Navy Seals are taught to ask the question, “What in this situation can I control immediately?” By contrast, most people ask themselves, “What could go wrong? What can’t I control in this situation? What should I fear and worry about?” because most of us are hard-wired to think that way.”
This one idea helped me get through some of the anxiety I was feeling about speaking. I started thinking, that’s true. I can’t control that future moment, so what can I control right now? The answer was myself.
I brought myself back to the present moment and calmed my nerves. There was no reason to feel anxiety because that future moment wasn’t my present moment.
Sitting in a small event/ conference room of the Kia Center, home to the Orlando Magic, I could feel the anxiety starting to rise as I waited for my turn to speak to the small group of business professionals who had come to learn more about the direction of the company.
Forcing the nerves and intrusive thoughts of speaking in public to the side had been easier to do early on, but as it neared my turn, my anxiety levels were ratcheting up.
Returning to that small section of Ed Mylett’s book, I started to think about what I could control immediately.
The answer was I could only control myself.
I couldn’t control what happened once I got up to speak. I couldn’t control the audience and what they thought. I couldn’t control how anyone else behaved except for myself.
In going through this thought process, I began to solidify myself in the present moment and not in a made-up future moment that probably wouldn’t happen.
Controlling my breathing became a natural part of the exercise. Slowing my mind and focusing on calming my body and mind down became very relaxing.
Before I knew it, I was upfront, mic in hand delivering my portion of the message. Some people looked bored, some looked indifferent, and some looked interested. Only 10 – 20 seconds in and my nerves were gone. I had allowed myself to succumb to the present moment and it felt great.
I didn’t have to control anything because there wasn’t anything to control, and once I accepted that I was able to truly let go.
Struggling to stay in the present moment, or remembering to focus on it is probably the hardest challenge most people will run into.
You may feel as if you don’t have time. You may feel like it’s too difficult.
However, would you prefer to spend time learning to use this as a tool to create more peace in your life, or would you prefer to struggle to find peace using the same methods you’ve been using to get you to where you are now?
In my opinion, you’re going to struggle one way or another, at least at the beginning, so why not choose the path that can lead to greater peace and joy in your life instead of more stress and anxiety?
How Do You Learn to Focus on THIS Moment?
One way is to constantly remind yourself that the only place you can be is right here, right now.
Another way, which I’ve mentioned in almost every post, is through meditation. Learning to sit in silence for an extended period of time can help you learn to be more present.
A third way is to be conscious of your unconscious thoughts. If you are unaware of what you are thinking, then it’s hard to stay in the present moment. It’s almost like you need a mental doorman to open and close the door for every thought you have, who then reports to security anytime a thought enters your mind that shouldn’t be there. One that tries to pull you into the future or past.
From There, You Repeat, Day In and Day Out.
In the beginning, you will struggle, so be prepared for it. There’s nothing wrong with it, there isn’t anything wrong with you, but as with anything in life, the more you practice the better you get.
Give yourself time to acclimate to the new way of thinking and living. Don’t give up after two or three days because it “doesn’t work”.
If you do that, it definitely won’t work.
This isn’t something you shouldn’t try to force on yourself either. You take time to mentally think through how you are going to be present and then you stay present as long as you can. When you come to the realization that you are no longer present, you simply pull yourself back to this moment and be present again.
You don’t need to beat yourself up or get upset because you keep drifting, simply come back over and over again.
Eventually, you’ll start to see progress. You’ll start to notice little changes in how you think and feel about life. You’ll start to let go of things you used to hold onto that kept you locked in some other moment other than the here and now.
In time, it will just become something you do because the resulting peace and joy will turn into a greater force than the stress and anxiety you used to feel.
I hope this helps and the message I’m trying to share makes sense. If it does, and you know of someone who might benefit from reading, please share with them.
Much love to you all.
Josiah
