The gift of now

This moment – here and now - is the only one that matters.

You may have heard that phrase many times before, but this may be the right time to savor it.

There is no other moment than this moment. All past moments, days, months, and years are just memories. All future moments, days, months, and years are projections that may or may not be realized.

This moment is the only one that matters. It’s one to be grateful for, because it is the moment all your past moments worked toward. It is the only moment in which you are your current self. In the next moment, many changes will have happened to you, physically and psychologically. Cells died off and others were created, changing the substance that is you forever. Impressions and experiences further contribute to the change: The person who woke up this morning is long gone by the time you lay your head to rest at night.

You change all the time, and that is a gift in itself. Accepting this notion will also make you more susceptible to other changes, because you acknowledge that change is an ongoing process, internally and externally, and that you are the ultimate manifestation of it.

Because you change all the time, there is no need to feel regret for situations, ventures, or relationships that went wrong in the past, because these were history teachers:  They taught you lessons you would not have learned if they did not present themselves.

Similarly, there is no need to feel excessively proud of your past achievements, because they were accomplished by someone that no longer exists. While there are elements of that person in you at this moment, the configuration has changed, and much of that past achiever has expired.

Understanding the gift of “now” can be a liberating as well as a daunting one, because it brings along the realization of its fleeting nature. It has all the ingredients of the famous quote, “This, too, shall pass”. If you are not too happy at this moment, you can rejoice in the realization that it will soon pass. If you cherish your current circumstances, you may feel melancholic about pending changes.

Yet, nothing can take away the gift of now. Anything that may happen next is not now. So, breathe deeply and be grateful for receiving the gift of now. It will soon be gone.

The gift of our past

The other day I was browsing through one of the well-known online newspapers, and came across a piece titled: "If you could erase something from your past, would you?"* I decided to first philosophize about the question, and then consider reading the article. If someone would have asked me this question ten or fifteen years ago, I would have probably admitted and even pointed out which parts of my past I would like to erase. Yet, today I look at it entirely differently. This may be one of the benefits of maturing: Today I see my life as an interesting book. One of which each page is valuable, because it contributes to a fascinating, illuminating whole. And the nicest thing to all of this is that the book is not complete yet, because there are new paragraphs written every day, leading to new pages and, ultimately, chapters.

Of course this doesn’t just apply to me. Everyone is writing his or her own book all the time. The difference may be that we're not all equally interested in creating new chapters. Wim Sonneveld, a popular Dutch comedian from the past, recorded a conference of an old man in a nursing home who reminisces about his wife. In a whining tone he compares her to a beautiful book, but one that he has already finished. This may sound funny, but if you think about it, it may also indicate one of the following facts: 1) his wife was deceased (which I believe was the case here), 2) his wife was alive but had ceased to add new meaning to her life, so there was no surprise element anymore in their relationship, or 3) he lost interest in his wife, as happens in so many long-term relationships, and was thus no longer interested in possible new dimensions she had to offer.

Of course we cannot prevent others from losing interest in us, but we can nourish interest in our own lives. Colleagues, partners, friends, and even family members come and go in our lives, but there’s no escaping ourselves, at least not while we have all our marbles.

And so we continue writing our book, but we do so in our own preferred way: we can fill page after page  with a monotonous pattern of recurring predictabilities, or we can spice up our story with self-development, new experiences, fun and gratifying activities and meaningful work. We can also determine our attitude to previous chapters: we can consider them as failed and regret them, wishing we could forget them as soon as possible, or we can accept them for what they really are: the building blocks that have contributed to the person who we are today, and the person we will be in the future. Ultimately, it’s not the glorious moments that bring us our insights, but the less pleasant experiences of which we may feel less proud or perhaps even detect a small remnant sorrow or shame. Those are the moments that molded us into understanding and compassionate beings and that form the foundation for the insights that we now share with younger generations. I became aware of that once again last week in the first workshop this semester: I told the participants about a major challenge that I faced some twenty or more years ago, and the fact that I did not understand what it would all be good for, but now today, I can tap from that enormous wealth of beautiful and less striking, robust and fragile, clear and fuzzy, sunny and dark experiences, and use them as illustrations in broadening the horizons of those who value it.  So expunge? I don’t think so…

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* The Huffington Post

The gift of the present

As members of today's hectic society, we are always on the go. Our days consist of looking ahead to how, where, when, and with whom we can swing the best deal to secure the best future. In this materialistic treadmill, we may sometimes look at the past to gather some information and trends, or to remember some precious lessons. But the present is often forgotten...

An interesting word of its own -the present- it should be clear to us that this is the gift of gifts, granted by a providential, synergistic alliance of nature, existence, and countless cosmic collaborations. It's a moment that will never return, and that will be gone in the next instant. This fleeting moment is the only one in which we are sure that we are alive! There is no guarantee that we will see the next day, or even the next moment, let alone a distant future for which we make so many plans. And yesterday – well, that's yesterday: with all its gloom, glamor, and glory. There is no greater beauty than the here and now, in which we reside, communicate, connect, breathe, talk, laugh, love, and live...

If we can get ourselves to take a few minutes every day to really enjoy this fabulous gift that we so often neglect on our way to a fuzzy future, we could make our lives, and the lives of those around us, infinitely more beautiful...