Scarlet
O’Hara in Gone With the Wind said at the end
of the movie: “Tomorrow is another day.”
As a
parent, you may want to make plans for you children. But the most important
thing is to enjoy them. There is so
much enjoyment teaching them everything, such as how to read.
Yes,
tomorrow is another day, but that day may or may never come. Fortunately or
unfortunately, we always choose to believe that it will come. Fortunately in
that it may give us hope and expectation; unfortunately in
that it may divorce ourselves from the realities of life, making us less
grateful of the present or less thankful of what we already have.
But
living in the now is exemplary of the consciousness of being. Today is now,
and mindfulness of the present is realization not only that tomorrow is another
day but also that it might never come. This mental consciousness may make you
aware that you are precious and unique because now you have
become fully awake. Living in the now means asking yourself mind-searching
questions: What do I need to know now? What do I need to love now?
What do I need to be grateful for now? In short, today provides the
compass and road map for your life journey, which might abruptly end tomorrow.
Living
in the now is easier said than done because the human mind has a tendency to
focus on the past or to project itself into the future, but seldom
stays in the present.
Our
actions or inactions are derived and driven by our thoughts and memories of our
past experiences. If those experiences were negative, our conscious and
subconscious mind will tell us to avoid them in the future; on the other hand,
if they are positive, they tend to instruct us to repeat them in the future.
Accordingly, the human mind will constantly shuffle between the past and the
future. As a result, it seldom stays in the present moment. To illustrate,
while talking on the cell phone, how often do we talk about what happened or
what we are going to do next? If we think more deeply, the subject of our
conversation mostly involves mostly the past or the future. In a worse
scenario, many of us are talking or texting while driving, in other words, our
mental focus is certainly not on the now—which is driving our car.
Mindfulness
is your purposeful attention to the present moment. This purposeful attention
enables you to recognize your thoughts as they occur, but without paying
judgmental attention to them; in other words, they neither distract nor disturb
you, and you just observe them
objectively, like watching a movie about yourself unfolding before your very
eyes.
To
train your mind to focus more on the present, concentrate on your breathing.
Most of us are totally unaware of our breaths, unless we are short of breath
after running or climbing stairs, or due to some medical conditions.
Concentration on how you breathe in and breathe out, as well as your body’s
sensations during the inhalation and exhalation trains you to develop
mindfulness. Understand that your body is yours only, and it is always with you. Finding the
moment-by-moment relationship with your body through your breathing is your
pathway to wellness of the body, the mind, and the soul.
According to the TAO, always live in the now, and tomorrow is just another day yet to come.
According to the TAO, always live in the now, and tomorrow is just another day yet to come.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
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