The Now.

Just read this post on the Think Simple Now blog, and I think Im in love. Hope you like it too!

Recall the times when you felt most alive?
I bet it was when you were with friends or family, maybe on top of the Eiffel Tower, maybe playing a game or a sport, maybe when racing your car or dancing the night away.
I bet it was when your entire being, body and soul were totally immersed in the moment and in the experience. I bet you had zero thoughts focused on worrying about the future or regretting the past.
I am asking you to recall the moments in your life when you felt ecstatically alive, because I believe that you can choose to live this way, most of the time.
You can choose to be completely present-minded, enjoying every moment of right now, second after second, minute after minute. You can’t feel alive in the past and you can’t feel alive in the future. You can only feel alive right now, in this moment.
Why would you want to spend every day worrying about the things that can go wrong? Why would you want to spend every day regretting the past? The sun could burn out, wars could start, you could get robbed or shot, you could lose your job, important relationships could come to an end. Any of these things could happen in the next 5 minutes, but they could also happen in 10 years, or even after your lifetime.
The past will never, ever change. What’s done is done, no matter how hard you wish or how much you think about it. Live and learn, life is a journey and the journey is the destination.
But this moment right now…it’s priceless. Every single moment of right now is a gift. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. It may bring happiness and joy, and it may bring bad news.
This doesn’t mean that I am suggesting that you just forget about everything, and live in the moment. We are all unique individuals. What may work for me may not work for you. We all have our path for living happily.
For me, I make plans for the future. I like to think of scenarios that could occur, and I like to have targets to work towards. I like to think back to the past sometimes, and although there are things that I’m not completely happy with, I don’t regret anything. I am the sum of all my experiences, both good and bad. If anything in my past would be different, I would not be who I am today.
I’m scared sometimes. I fear that I won’t be able to build a successful business and that I will not make money. Sometimes I doubt my own abilities, and I wonder if I’m good enough for the world. These are the thoughts that surface when I get in my head too much, and I let that negative social conditioning take control.
My desire to live and to succeed is far greater than my fear of failure. The past is over, and all we can do is learn from them.
The future is uncertain, and it is coming, whether we worry about them or not.