We say such things more often than we can admit. We do not want to be beaten, and yet, many times, in some situations, we declare ourselves defeated. We give up on love, we give up ideas, we give up people, we give up dreams, every time it gets hard. Because our mind always seeks to stand in comfort. And when things get complicated, when we feel that we are afraid of the unknown, when we think we lose control and we can not imagine what awaits us in the future, when we think the risks weigh more than the potential gains, we give up, because that seems the decision best for the moment.
And maybe it is, but we often get to a point of our life when we want to have the power to give back time and to go in the past with the present perspective in the desire to make things different. But because the time machine was not invented so far, all we have to do is look back thinking we could have learned more, we could have worked harder, we could have loved more, we could have said more or do more.
And so we feed the regret, the sadness, the impotence, the negative thoughts towards ourselves, the feelings of futility, the non-acceptance of one's own person, and the feeling of losing our own lives. Because even if at some point in life it seems that it was the wiser choice to give up, as time passes and we restructure the images of our own lives, we realize that we did not feel so deeply it was okay to let us down in some past situations and that we did not feel whole, complete, satisfied. Instead we feel we have failed, sometimes to the extent that we have missed our own lives.
The thought of personal failure is perhaps the most dangerous.
Because it keeps us stuck in the past and makes us indifferent to ourselves and to punish ourselves deeply. The thought of personal failure scares us, especially if we go through that stage when we think we can afford to give up because we have time to do more in the future. It scares us the harder as we get older and the more we feel we are more constrained by the social pressures and the expectations of others. And this fear grows and turns into an anxiety bullet that holds us in the thoughts of the fact that maybe even the future will not bring us what we want and that what awaits us can be even dangerous.
And all this mental process leads to an untried life, because we lack exactly the most important thing: living today. Is not it strange to see how we are given a life we learn to live through the past or the future and not the present moment? It seems a paradox to have a present and not to be in it at all.
I believe that beyond any decision we regret, beyond any fear of the future, the greatest punishment we can apply to ourselves is not to live HERE and NOW. And studies say this is the most important thing that helps a man be happy. To live now.
We can not recover the past and we can not rewrite it.
And maybe if we could, we would not be the ones now. Maybe we could know more, maybe we could love differently, maybe we would be richer, but we would be just as dissatisfied. Because I tend to think that any decisions we make, human nature makes us doubt them and believe anyway that we could have done more.
So, with past and human nature, we can not fight. As for the future, we can do our part, but it is always possible that it does not look the way we imagine. And then what remains for us to be happy in this life on earth is the acceptance of the present moment. Let us be allowed to be here, here and now, as we really are. With our past of mistakes, our vulnerability, authentic and imperfect.
Some people call it mindfulness, perhaps you have heard of this concept. We can tell him anyway, it matters less the name of what the process in itself counts, because it has been shown that if we apply it, we can get happier.
Being mindful, that is, living now does not mean to empty our thoughts, as some people may think, because it is impossible for us, people, not to think at all. To be mindful means to put those thoughts in different compartments and make room for ourselves in our minds, to feel ourselves, to see us, to hear us, to connect with everything that is around by the simplest horses. To be mindful means simply to be.
Simply being stopping to look at a rainstorm on a leaf and getting all the attention to that. Being to look at the stars and to feel the cool of the night at the same time. Being to be enjoying the first snowflake as a child does. Being to become the child who discovers the world and enjoying everything he sees around.
Happiness means connecting us with everything that is here and now. Because when we do that, it seems we stop the time instead. And time does not stay with us when we are not present, time is our friend when we know to enjoy this moment really. It's like stopping it in and we're screwed up knowing there's no end.
Did you happen to drive to a destination and after miles of miles, do not you remember how you got where you are? Did it happen to you at night to get home and not remember doing something spectacular that day? Did you happen to realize that somewhere between your leaving home and the lunch break you have an empty memory and you do not remember what you did? This is the feeling we have when we are not living here and now and we are willing to blame ourselves for the past and worry about the future. This is how we feel when the thoughts are chaotic in our minds and are not placed each in its own drawer.
Denis Waitley said: "Happiness can not be found, conquered, won, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude. "
I wanted this article to make you a little more aware of the way we often let our life drain out without living it. Because we are so set on the automatic pilot that we lose sight of many things that could bring real joy to us. And if you understand something about the importance of living HERE and NOW, then I encourage you to stay with me because next time I will also offer you some ways to calm your mind so that you can live nicely today.