An extract from 'Words To Live By' Vol 1
By Simon Lawrence
Let us pretend the two of us are standing together right at this very moment. Firstly we look one way along the time-line of our lives, towards the distant past that seems so unconnected to now, and then we turn and watch the time-line of what will become our future as it disappears in the opposite direction, again into the furthest distance…
But right now at this exact moment we are here, the meeting place of our past and now, the now that will become later today, then tomorrow and beyond, into forever.
But we can never be in any other place than this moment. We cannot possibly live in the past, even if our mind attempts to do that. Neither can we step into the future, we may try, and if we attempt that too often we only succeed in doing one thing and that is not living for now… so we wreck our lives, our mind becomes confused and depressed; stressed is a great word for it, we collapse under the burdens of all our yesterdays and the fearful tomorrow's they created.
So it begins to become obvious to me that we need to live for today, or more importantly for now, right at this place we are standing together.
Some of today may involve reviewing the past or planning what we choose for tomorrow, but there is never an excuse for doing that with fear and regret.
Today, or right now is the time to live, it is not a time for pointless worry about the future because that is what we will eventually create, and we must stop… right now fretting over the past mistakes we have made along the time-time that is all of our yesterdays.
I remember travelling with my son as he grew to be the wonderful young man he is now and makes me so proud to be his Father, and like all children, almost as I reversed from the drive, he would ask… ‘Dad, are we nearly there yet?’ So together we would mark our distance between mileposts. We would look for something familiar, and when we saw it we would look for the next and the one after that. It broke the journey into the pieces of now and soon we were at our destination. Those thoughts of a long and boring trip completely disappeared because we were only thinking of what we were doing right at that moment. Looking for the next milepost. Of course, it probably involved a substantial bar of chocolate along the way too.
We can do the same with our lives, break all of our ‘NOW'S into the present moment, and concentrate only on what we are doing, to only move in the direction we choose, and inevitably better, more fulfilling tomorrow's will follow. Does this work, certainly, but the only way you will prove it is by trying it… by living it!
By Simon Lawrence
Let us pretend the two of us are standing together right at this very moment. Firstly we look one way along the time-line of our lives, towards the distant past that seems so unconnected to now, and then we turn and watch the time-line of what will become our future as it disappears in the opposite direction, again into the furthest distance…
But right now at this exact moment we are here, the meeting place of our past and now, the now that will become later today, then tomorrow and beyond, into forever.
But we can never be in any other place than this moment. We cannot possibly live in the past, even if our mind attempts to do that. Neither can we step into the future, we may try, and if we attempt that too often we only succeed in doing one thing and that is not living for now… so we wreck our lives, our mind becomes confused and depressed; stressed is a great word for it, we collapse under the burdens of all our yesterdays and the fearful tomorrow's they created.
So it begins to become obvious to me that we need to live for today, or more importantly for now, right at this place we are standing together.
Some of today may involve reviewing the past or planning what we choose for tomorrow, but there is never an excuse for doing that with fear and regret.
Today, or right now is the time to live, it is not a time for pointless worry about the future because that is what we will eventually create, and we must stop… right now fretting over the past mistakes we have made along the time-time that is all of our yesterdays.
I remember travelling with my son as he grew to be the wonderful young man he is now and makes me so proud to be his Father, and like all children, almost as I reversed from the drive, he would ask… ‘Dad, are we nearly there yet?’ So together we would mark our distance between mileposts. We would look for something familiar, and when we saw it we would look for the next and the one after that. It broke the journey into the pieces of now and soon we were at our destination. Those thoughts of a long and boring trip completely disappeared because we were only thinking of what we were doing right at that moment. Looking for the next milepost. Of course, it probably involved a substantial bar of chocolate along the way too.
We can do the same with our lives, break all of our ‘NOW'S into the present moment, and concentrate only on what we are doing, to only move in the direction we choose, and inevitably better, more fulfilling tomorrow's will follow. Does this work, certainly, but the only way you will prove it is by trying it… by living it!