My calendar quote for this week was „Be present in everything you do, because the only reality is now.“ (Wisdom from Zen Buddhism)
I really like this quote. The past is unchangeable, the more time passes, the sooner we will re-evaluate and interpret it in a more positive way. But the facts will remain the same. The personal past is a bit paradoxical, as the older it gets, the more beautiful it seems to us.
The future lies ahead of us, it is covered by curtains. We guess what may come, but we can never be sure, if and how it will and could really happen. Maybe it’s similar to a mirage, we’re working towards something, but maybe it disappears before we reach it completely, or it remains. We have to take care of the future, but we will never live in exactly the future we had planned.
What remains is now. That’s why it’s important to take full advantage of the moment, who knows how many „now“ each of us still have and can fully enjoy.
This becomes particularly clear to you when you lie in bed with a high fever and either doze or sleep the whole day and night, in this way you will lose the sense of time. Then it blurs now and you can’t be present at all. Time is then like jelly, it drags, the now becomes sand and glides through your fingers. To be present, the now should be like clay, something with which you can be active and do something good for others and yourself.
Do you use the now like clay or more like sand?