When Would Now Be A Good Time?

What is Life About?

This very moment is the essence of everything in life, because you are living.

Or are you?

Looking Forward

Today is the tomorrow you were dreaming of so many years ago.

Remember being excited to do something that you take for granted?

In high school, you were excited to be out in the real world.

When learning to drive, you longed to drive by yourself.

After job hunting forever, you were so excited for your new job?

These moments of joy seem to fade quickly in the realisation that after a while, anything becomes “normal”.

We constantly seek a fictional future moment where we will have what we want.

Then, we convince ourselves, we will be happy after we get (insert arbitrary goal).

If X ≠ Happiness

It is natural to want more and believe that something in the future will result in happiness.

But why should you hold your happiness for ransom for a vision or an ideal?

When you do achieve that goal the joy is temporary.

Remember the last time you waited a long time to get what you wanted?

You were thinking about what you wanted 24/7 and then eventually you got it. You felt amazing, maybe for one year, or a month, or a minute.

Material joy always seems to be so fleeting.

The opposite occurs when it comes to negative moments. We let a bad or frustrating minute of life linger and impact us for hours, days, or months.

Living Your Best Life

Think about your recent paycheck.

It is never enough.

I have scarcely heard of people complaining that they earn too much money from their job.

Think now about your first paycheck ever. It was probably significantly less than you are earning now.

How satisfied were you with your first real sum of money put into your bank account?

I’m guessing you felt like the monopoly man.

However, the feeling eventually faded, and over time, you began to expect that check was coming in every week.

You stopped associating the work that you do and the value you create with your paycheck because you only feel the monotony of waking up when you don’t feel like it day in and day out.

The joy feels sucked out of you because of your new found expectations.

The point is that it is not how much we have that makes us happy; It is how much we appreciate and enjoy what we have that makes us fulfilled.

A Dilemma of The Human Species

An ant will carry food over long distances until it drops dead.

A tree will grow as large as it possibly can.

But most humans, for some reason, will not persist and not grow as large as they can.

We have a blessed tool, wired for imagination.

Our thoughts and ideas have allowed us to survive and thrive as a species.

We can share our creative ideas and assimilate based on shared dreams and goals.

Yet, it is bizzare that the “human being” is the only animal on earth that does not strive to reach its full potential?

Is this a result of our imagination?

The future and the past are both imagined and as humans, our imaginations can cause bliss or dread.

Our overactive minds can easily get worked-up, anxious, and stuck in a non-productive state.

The fact that we reflect on the past and plan for the future is beneficial, but we often spend too much time and energy, that ends up diverting life from the present moment.

A question to ask yourself is "what could I focus on right now to help steer me forward?"

Everything Feels Normal

This moment could be the best time of your life, and you don’t realise it.

The old you was praying for what you now take for granted.

Have you ever looked back to a moment or period of your life and described it as the “best of times”, but didn’t acknowledge how good it was until much later?

We tend to normalise the current moment because it helps us deal with life.

Our success generally benefits because it drives us to bigger and better things.

However, we often neglect our emotions in an attempt to get to the next thing and sometimes we even commit the cardinal sin and kill time.

The Gift of The Present

The past is a dream that lies behind us, and the future might not happen.

What can you do right now to make you the person you want to be?

If we focus more on living in the present, we can truly experience life.

Now can be an action. Now could be a choice. Now can be given an intention.