I am a voracious and exceedingly varied reader. Some of the things I read are pretty heavy, and I can only comprehend what I’m reading in small doses. One book I recently finished, The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, was one of THOSE books.
The book is subtitled, A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, and I read it because someone I care about a great deal recently read it and wanted to discuss it with me. When I’d finished, I was probably more confused than enlightened, but it did get me to think more deeply than I normally do about this life I’ve been living.
Please note that this post is not a book
review. It’s simply my musings as a result of reading this book. I might have completely missed Tolle’s point, but newly acquired ideas and knowledge that affect my life are always important to me. My bottom-line takeaway: the only moment that matters is the moment you’re in now.
Tolle contends that there is no time as we know it, there is only now. Everything happens NOW. While it’s true that past “nows” shaped your life experience memory, and future “nows” help determine the path of the rest of your life, NOW is the only today shaping time. Today is really all you have to work with.
Wrapping one’s head around the concept that there is no time, there is only NOW, is nearly impossible. So it helps me to remember that only today we have the opportunity and privilege to make today the best day of our lives. Everything happens NOW. When it happened, it was now. It will be NOW when it does happen in the future. Nothing happens in the past. Nothing happens in the future. It only happens now. Today’s NOW becomes the past. If today is happy, tomorrow, your past life experience is happy.
Nothing we do can change what happened in the past, and often, dwelling on it ruins or diminishes happiness. Conversely, making less than happy choices today because of something that MIGHT happen in the future diminishes today’s life. What you can do today, though, is right a wrong, or make provisions to insure a better future. Doing something today contributes to happy.
At least 200 times since we’ve moved to Florida, I’ve commented to Randy that “I am so happy.” Never having been inclined to live in the past or think I’ll be happier when something happens in the future, I consider my emotional health (and happiness level) pretty dang high. I now understand why Tolle is right. There’s spiritual power and physical happiness in living NOW.
So, here’s THE SECRET to happiness: Make today be the best day of your best life.
Happiness is felt in real time. BE happy today. Today, seek out experiences and people and things that make you happy. Make mental, physical, spiritual, and relationship choices that result in feeling happy. Forget the past. The future will take care of itself because you’re creating it.
How about it? Are you happy? If not, do you have the courage to slay and bury, or perhaps undertake, whatever may be keeping you from today’s happiness? How might it feel to actually live happily ever after?
Your assignment, should you decide to accept it: Do the hard work of ridding your life of people, things, experiences, memories, commitments, and anything that drags you out of the State of Happiness. Experience happy….maybe for the first time.
P.S. I can recall the first time I clearly remember being consciously happy. I was walking through a Walmart in Wisconsin. I’d just been fired from the only job I’ve ever been fired from. But that, dear readers, is another story for another day.
P.P.S. I got a comment from an old friend (both long-time and older than I) on the last post I wrote. Here’s what he said:
My J O B is life. Live it every day and forget the past. It doesn’t return, it won’t be as good as the day you are in today for today you get another chance to do what you want and not worry about what happened the previous day. I live for the current day and not the past.
Living in a Senior Living Facility teaches that some of those you now work and live with are here today but may not be here tomorrow or even an hour from now. That doesn’t make me a cynic but closer to a realist. My goal is to enjoy each day and decide for myself what are the important pursuits today. Long range to me is a week or two at the most. I may plan slightly beyond that, but I don’t consider these plans essential to life until action is needed.
His comment was timely and helped inspire me to write this post. Thanks, Howard.
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