Past and future

When we think about it, it is surprising how much of our lives we live in our past and future. Reminiscing about the things that we have done, have experienced. Perhaps about things we now wish we had done differently, things that were hard (but we survived). Re-living our past victories and succes stories. While on the other hand we make plans for our future. For the things we want to do next week, next month; on our next vacation. All the things we still wish to experience, trips we want to make this year or the next…

And yet most of us will agree that the best way to live our life and experience everything it has to offer to the fullest is to live ‘now’. In this point in time. Without weighing our experiences against what has happened last month or last year, or continuously looking at how it could have been better.

It seems that living in this very moment is harder than it looks, as we all too often feel weighted down by our past, or find ourselves worrying about our future.

The solution ~ although by no means easy ~ is to every one in a while take some time to take an honest look at whatever it is we are carrying along on our paths through life. If we would do so, we may find that there are a handful of things that we feel are truly essential for living our lives the way we want to. Then there can be quite a pile of things we have learned in our youth, some of which have proven to be helpful, while other things ~ even then ~ were not. And perhaps the third pile of things are those things we were told by others. The opinions of others as to how we present ourselves, what we do, how we act; even how we choose to dress.

Having made this division, it becomes clear which parts of our past we have no loner an need for in our lives, and consequently we can leave those behind.
The things that are not ~ or never were ~ helping us. And the opinions of other people. Of course everybody has the right to their opinion; and we can even listen to other people’s opinions. However, that doesn’t mean that we should also act on those opinions other people may have. Especially if we cannot perceive any manner in which they would actually help us on our paths through life.

If we do take the time and effort to lighten our loads this way, something wonderful tends to happen! Not only does it enable us to let the past be the past, chances are that now that we are no longer carrying too much of a load already, we are not quite so worried about what the future may hold in store for us.
And those two things make it a lot easier for us to live our lives in full awareness, right now.