Live in the Now

By Tommy Leung on 03/25/2009 in Life

Image by muscapix via Flickr

Many people like to dwell in the past. Past failures or past accomplishments. Past good times or past bad times. What we really need is to live in the now. It is not about who we were with or what we did. It is about who we are with and what we are doing.

Nostalgia is a funny emotion. It makes us feel good and puts the past on a pedestal. However, our memory of the past is always better than what it really was. Trying to relive those moments is never the same. The sad truth is that the past is not coming back. It’s done. What we have is now and tomorrow.

On the flip side, some pasts are terrible. They create phobias. We never want to relive them again. Yet, we still keep them in mind. In fact, we become so deathly afraid of them that we panic at the thought of repeating them! While nostalgic moments are not really as good as we remember, bad moments aren’t as bad as we remember either.

It doesn’t matter which side of the coin the past that you are dwelling on resides. They are both fundamentally the same and lead to the same conclusion: live in the now.

Past achievements do not give us an excuse to do poorly now. Past failures do not give us an excuse to give up before we’ve even tried. What happened in the past is no guarantee of what will happen in the future. The only way you can influence the future is by what you do now.

Don’t scramble and put great energy into reviving the past. Put that energy and focus into creating something new. The past is gone, the now is here.

Stop worrying about what people did in the past. Recognize and celebrate the good, forgive and forget the past, and get to know who they are today.

Live in the now.

By Tommy Leung