I, like most other humans, have wasted an incredible amount of time either lingering on things that have happened in the past, or imagining future scenarios.
I have spent countless hours of my life letting my past run my life, or holding onto how someone has treated me badly, or having constant regrets and wishing I could have done things differently.
Being preoccupied with the future is almost just as bad. We all have counted down or looked forward to a particular day or point in time, treating the present moment like it's some obstacle that has to be overcome. Then, when we finally arrive at that particular point in time, we are underwhelmed.
The past and future can both be used in ways that would benefit us. But when we linger and obsess over things that do not technically exist (except for as a memory in the brain or an imagined circumstance for what is to come), we are not living.
This is a lesson that I'm still working to learn. It's easy to have regrets in broken relationships in friendships and with mistakes we have made in the past. But what difference would it make to the present moment if I had made a different decision? There is a difference between realizing how the past shapes the decisions we should make in the present and obsessive over mistakes that have been made. There is a difference between making positive decisions in the present moment that will shape our future (karma) and living only for what the future holds.
If we're not present in the work we do, with the relationships we have, within ourselves, we aren't happy. How can we be? When thinking of the past, we are living in something that no longer exists. When thinking in the future, we avoid the present moment by wishing we were somewhere else. Both past and future only exist in the mind, where the present always exists.
The "now" is all there is. Let's live here.
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