Last week I started thinking about a major paradigm shift I experienced a long time ago. It was the result of reading
The Power Of Now, a book written by spiritual leader Eckhart Tolle. If you want to worry less about the past & future and lead a more fullfilling life from moment to moment, then you may find this article enlightening.
I used to spend most of my days chewing on the past, trying to remember every single bad thing that had gone wrong. I believed that figuring it all out would prevent me from making mistakes in the future. But after years of pondering, nothing changed and I was still feeling miserable. I condemned myself to an eternal rollercoaster ride of regret, while at the same time I was neglecting the fact that I already had the power in me to change everything. I didn't consciously choose to experience my life in the present moment and therefore failed to change anything. I failed to appreciate my life for what it was.
I love to spend time at bookstores, so one day I came across Eckhart Tolle's "
The Power Of Now". I read it from cover to cover in a few days and felt instantly moved by it. The first month I didn't experience any real big changes, but eventually, I noticed how my perspective on life began to shift. I was slowly adding more and more meaning to every new moment and finding more and more enjoyment in it.
How I feel about the present now, is no longer affected by the past or the future. Whatever I used to believe to be true about my past or future, is now irrelevant... there is no past or future. There is only now, moments of potential being, and the ability to choose. Choice and potential now determines the reality of who I am.
When people feel bad about life, it often means they don't allow themselves to be happy in the present moment. Past experiences and speculations about the future then outweigh the "now". So instead of paying the past or future a regular visit, they live there. Unfortunately those locations go hand in hand with a feeling of helplessness, especialy when they serve as placeholders for negative thoughts.
Imagine for a second, that every moment of your life can be represented by a blank canvas. You can choose to paint something ugly, because you're familiar with it, but you cannot deny feeling unfullfilled by it. The other options is that you consciously decide to learn how to paint in a new way, so that, with time and perseverance, you can aquire the skills to paint something that goes beyond your current beliefs.
Ever since I made the decision to spend less time in memory lane, I feel empowered instead of discouraged. I've learned to appreciate the road I'm on and it allows me to experience life in a very vivid way. I no longer rewind and play my memory tapes over and over again to figure out what went wrong. And I no longer paint mental pictures of a possibly miserable future.
Dreams and memories will never please you like the present moment can. If they cannot contribute to a more enjoyable present, then you don't really need them. It's perfectly fine to look back at the past to recollect certain events or connect to your roots. And it's absolutely necessary to make longterm plans for the future. But it's wiser to spend more time planting seeds in the present moment, because only those seeds have the potential to grow and make a difference.
