Now is all there is.

How often do we really live in the moment, in the here and now? We know when it happens:
When we see a sunset, and feel its impact, as it reaches out and touches us,
When a piece of music transports us to a place and transcends our understanding,
When a smile from our children banishes in an instant our pre- occupations,
And the touch of a hand from the one you love, causes your heart to leap,

These are moments of real clarity that we experience in the present. They are pure, nurturing and real. And yet these experiences are in the minority when compared to the rest of our lives, why is that?
What is that we are doing so that these moments of clarity are crowded out, and are reserved for times when events “break through”?

Most of these moments happen as a result of something external to us. They arise as a result of an external stimulus. Wouldn’t it be great if we could be like this all the time, without the need of something or someone else to take us there?

Could it be that we spend so much time dreaming of a future that never arrives, that binds us into a state of suspended happiness, and the now becomes a place we are passing through, rather the only real true place to be.

“I can’t wait for my holiday”
“All will be fine when I have that new………….”
“I will rest at the weekend”

If the now is reduced to a place on the way to somewhere better, we will never arrive there.

Our evolutionary past puts us in a state of constant want. A want for water, food shelter, all of which in their day carried significant positive or negative survival payoffs, but this is now largely a redundant requirement and yet the want still exists. It gets channeled elsewhere. This constant wanting traps us into a confusion of where happiness lies. It sets up a dynamic of constantly looking for a better tomorrow, at the expense of living today. (That may well have been appropriate when if we didn’t plan for tomorrow we may have run out of food or been eaten by a sabre toothed tiger).

We end up being sad in the pleasures of today, because we are unable to stop thinking about all the good things we do not yet have.

We have also developed an addiction to the pleasure of the senses at the expense of a deeper pleasure of sustainable satisfaction.

So how about we find 30 minutes everyday to do nothing other than look at the sky, hear the rustling of the trees, listen to that piece of music, close our eyes and breath, and smile because NOW is all there is.