Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. I am guilty. Guilty of wishing for the future. Guilty of living in the future.
Paulo Coelho's advice in his book 'Eleven Minutes' could not be more relevant to me. His message is clear - live your today, not your tomorrow.
I am guilty of doing the very opposite of this.
When I stop and think about it, I constantly wish my 'today' away. I constantly look to my 'tomorrow'.
As I do my morning exercise, I wish the sweat and pain away.
As I catch my morning ferry, I wish the 'wasted' travel time away.
As I rush between meetings at work, I wish the evening would arrive.
As the week progresses, I wish for Friday night.
I could go on and on and on, but I think that it's clear what my problem is. There is too much 'wishing' and too little 'enjoying'.
It's time to shift my perspective. It's time to wish less and enjoy more.
I'm going to enjoy that sweat and pain as a I exercise.
I'm going to cherish that morning downtime on the ferry.
I'm going to seek maximum fulfillment from each and every experience during my day, rather than looking towards the next activity.
And now is a great time to start. I'm going to stop thinking about what I'm going to eat after I finish this post and reflect on what I am committing to.
My time starts now. Let's see how I go.
From now on, the motto 'live your today, not your tomorrow' will be tattooed onto my eyelids.
Brina I love this!!!! Ekhart Tolle is another great teacher of this principle and he is all about living in this present moment. In fact, he attributes alot of our suffering in life to our minds tendancy to get stuck in the past or the future and our inability to just be here now.
ReplyDeleteI love that you have come to this realisation as it is something I am trying to work on too! I find that just accepting the moment as it is now (rather than wishing it to be something else or wishing you were somewhere else) has really helped create so much more peace and happiness in each day of my life
All the best with your journey my love xxx
Hi! :D I found you by way of Connie's blog (above). Great post! This is something Heavenly Father has really been working to get through to me... (seriously, I don't know what I would do without Him!). I have had the issue of living in either the future or the past, probably for most of my life. Lately, I have been living in the past. Heavenly Father directed me to several sources to help me with this. The last source has been this article about Lot's wife (in the Bible) and her sin of longing for the past, and having more appreciation for the past than she had faith in the future. You can find the article with the following URL if you are interested... http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=8a4faf79ec2b5210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
ReplyDeleteSorry to ramble... this is my very sudden current passion... to learn to live in the here and now so it's easy for me to get carried away. :O
Good luck to you with your journey! I hope you have great success in your endeavors. :D
Corine