LIFE IS A PRESENT, AND LIES IN THE PRESENT!

They say life can be lived looking forward but understood only looking backwards. For those among us who were fortunate enough to have brushes with misfortune early in their careers, this theory would hardly seem much of an advice. For them, this concept is as inalienable as any of the physical laws that govern nature. In short, the best self help guide that you will ever need, are encoded in the lessons from your own misadventures. But it never is as easy as it sounds, right?

Between the vast canyons of the past and the future, lies this very narrow passage of the ‘present’. While the past can serve as a wise companion through our toughest stretches, the future is said to be a culmination of our past and present bets.  

The early conditioning most among us receive, constantly nudges us to seek a promised land situated someplace in the distant future. After some ardent pursuit, much perseverance and in many cases, constant and vivid visualization of the promised land, a select few actually make it. Although, as they stand atop and flabbergasted, looking back is just a painful reminder of how much of life they have missed.

All the seekers of this promised land have one thing in common; they all live a life of anticipation. Many of them ruthlessly squeeze out any spec of momentary joys that befall them, and postpone it until a future event that isn’t even in clear sight.

Only a few among us truly break past the barrier of future anticipation and fold up everything in the NOW!

The NOW is an extraordinary place to be in; however straightforward this may sound, it also happens to be the most ignored space of our millennial lives. The space where nothing about our past choices influences our current experience, nor the anxiety of the future has any sway our joyfulness. Just the real, raw experience of being truly aware of everything that is happening around you, and within you.

Now, the question arises, why then is it so difficult to be in the NOW? And how can we reboot to our default setting?

Our default setting as ignorant children, was to revel in the present. The future was never in our scheme of things, not even the immediate play plans. We were so busy just trying to consume the abundance in each moment that nothing else mattered.

Then why and when did it all change?

The answer lies in our individual journeys. In some of them, our well-meaning parents play the spoiler; trying to match us up against the absurd, ever changing corporate world, we would soon be seen chasing frantically. Their own fears innocently penetrated our playful lives, replacing play time with stress.

In some others, it was the education system that as systematically matched us up against the fictitious benchmarks of social success. Either ways, it gradually and effectively conditioned our minds, so much so that those instructions still course through our veins. Now, we are just puppets of these constituted habits, not realizing that the baby elephant has grown big enough to dislodge the shackles.

But there is a way out. All we need is to take time out with our forgotten, old selves; the self that has slowly faded away in the many layers of such conditioning. Once you do catch up with him/ her, finding your way back is much easier.