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Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
- Thomas Carlyle
Photo by juwee
Life is the most beautiful gift to all of us from the supernatural spirit. It’s a journey, that never ends until our last breadth. There is abundance of knowledge to explore, people to meet and places to see in relatively short time that we live on this earth.
Yet, We shackle our mind with the dead yesterdays and equally with unborn tomorrows.
We can never be free from worries of past and of future that has yet to come, but we can develop a habit to consciously recognize their existence and give commitment to roll the iron doors shutting down on our dreaded past and unknown tomorrow. There lies the wisdom of living life today with all of its glory, with all of its promise.
In my life, for example, I have been enslaved by the worries of the past. Worries that can never seek tranquility nor wisdom to live better life ahead. I worried about losses I incurred in the stock market. I worried about friends who betrayed me long time ago. I worried about things that I wanted to do but never had courage to do those things.
I have had thoughts of “What if I lose everything that I have ?”. It was an ugly face of the future that dreaded my empty mind. Soon, I realized that I was ruled by emotions and not reality. I was wasting this short life that has so much energy, passion and wisdom to explore by engaging in to phantom worries.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
- Abraham Lincoln
Reason # 1 Why worry about things I can’t change ?
It’s a simple yet profound reason not to allow our mind to engage in what has already happened. If you can’t change it, why worry about it ?
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming slavery of dreaded past. I was bitter and resentful after death of my brother at young age. He was my mentor. He was my best friend. I felt that life was not worth living. I ignored friends, I ignored school. I could not comprehend that he was gone. Why did he have to die so young ? I couldn’t accept the reality. I was overwhelmed with emotional despair and resentment that fogged my vision for the day that was warm, awaiting to embrace me with so much to offer. You may have fallen in to abyss of emotional trauma for things that recently happened in your life. The fact is that worrying about things that I could not change, nor find any solutions for, are not worth harboring to stop a beautiful day that I can shape today. I have written about my thoughts on 3 Steps to the Freedom from the Painful Past to analyze the past and take action to either bury it or do something about it.
Habit # 1 Cooperate with reality. Yes, whatever happened has happened for reasons beyond our wildest imagination.
Reason # 2 Why worry about things that have not seen daylight yet ?
Researchers have found that 99 percent of our worries are related to things that never happens in our life. I, for example, have always worried about loosing everything that I have. What will I do ? How am I going to survive and pay all the bills ? These worries have had kept me enslaved for long time, yet they have never seen daylight. What happened ? Life still goes on. I still lived life, better than yesterday by any measure. I simply have to learn to live life with best of my efforts and let future take is course. This does not mean that I shall not plan and work on my goals. It simply means that once I have planned and developed goals, I shall focus only on being best I can for that task at hand today.
Habit # 2 I will not clutter my mind with thoughts of things that may never happen.
Reason # 3 After all, it’s not about me or is it ?
Let’s face it. We all worry about past that haunt us for the fact that we correlate the failed result of a planned action with our self esteem. We forget that, regardless of extent of prudent thinking and planning, as human being, we are prone to err. As I explore deeper into the reasoning for this correlation, it becomes visibly clear to me that I am feeling defeated when my efforts bring failure, I am feeling guilty of not hitting my target. Babe Ruth is known for his home runs, but he also holds strike out record. We only look at life on the verge of success, no matter how many losses it already endured on its journey to success. If I can detach, I, my ego, out of my thought process, I will learn to love life with as much passion as a mother loves her child with all his err. If I worry about loosing all that I have accumulated now, If I worry about my children’s future, I have allowed my ego to control my emotions.
Habit # 3 I will positively think, I will plan, I will act now and let future takes it course.
Master Habit: Get lost, lost in the moment at hand
This habit is cureall for all the worry dust we allow our mind to collect. Do you remember the feeling when you immerse yourself with all of your thoughts and focus on a single task ? It may have been organizing your wardrobe or cleaning your kitchen. Buddhists give immense credit to this process of engaging only in one task and giving all you have to it for the cureall to all the worries, whether it be your past or future that has yet to come. I believe that doing best for what I have been doing now shapes best tomorrow. Task I am doing may have been simple, small and insignificanct. Nonetheless, it is mother to the brighter tomorrow . Living life now instills zeal of a child who knows no fear. When I see my daughter playing tennis, one game at a time, and enjoying every moment of now that she is in, I am seeing all the answers to the worry clutter that had piled up over my brighter dawn.
Today is life-the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto. -Dale Carnegie
Other Blogs - Lori has another great article on present moment -
Journey into the Brain - A New Take on Nirvana?
To Your Success,
Why is it we insist on worrying about things we can’t change???
This thought about living in the present keeps presenting itself to me. I have been thinking about it a lot lately and have been trying to enjoy and be thankful for each moment I have. It really makes a difference! It’s a real challenge for me as I have always run on full throttle thinking constantly about what I’m going to do next.
Jennifer,
You are correct. Thinking of what to do next shifts your focus and attention from what you are doing now to what your are hoping to do in the future. There is a stark difference between the two. If you can not give your 100% to what you are doing now, you will yield disappointing result as your attention is not in doing best at hand.
Thanks for the great comment.
Shilpan
Whew! I’m glad I’m not the only one having trouble staying in the moment. I have lived so much of my life waiting for when this, or when that. Then, I tell myself, I’ll take time to relax and be happy. It’s so ridiculous to live this way but such a hard habit to break.
I’ve recently made a committment to myself that, if I accomplish nothing else in my day, I will find time to meditate to center myself and appreciate the moment. Without the inner peace that these habits will eventually bring, nothing else will be worth doing.
It’s taken me a long time to realize this and I’m finding it difficult to keep that promise to myself, but I’m trying. Wish me luck!
Lori,
Wow ! that was powerful comment. It’s shows that you were in the moment when you wrote this comment.
Anyway, I have had constant mental turmoil between thoughts of past and of future. I often found that I did not listen to an important conversation when my mind wandered in past or future and it was shameful when I realized that I did not listen to that important conversation.
Without these habits to focus on the present moment awareness, we live life without inner peace within.
It’s a difficult act but I am sure you can do it.
Shilpan,
In the article I just wrote, http://growingintoyou.com/?p=19, I wrote about how my goal was to live in the here and now. I will be writing an article going into greater detail on this in the near future. It is critical to be where mentally where you are at physically. If you are not, you are either trying to change something that can’t happen or skating by until the moment in the future occurs.
I really enjoy your post Shilpan, keep up the great work!
Tad
http://growingintoyou.com
Tad,
Your post is very inspiring. You have discussed importance of living the moment mentally as well as physically to be successful. I believe that when outside gets rough ( struggle, failures, despair etc.), we need to close all the windows of our mind and focus internally for source of strength as we do with our house. If it is too cold outside, we shut all the windows and turn heater inside. Life is no different.
Shilpan
Life sucks and there are no reasons to live, some people just like to fool themselves and give some meaning to their lives. There is no meaning to life and if there is it might not be to any advantage. We are on this earth because we are being punished for something,that the only explanation that I can think of.