Right Now?

Instructions for "Right Now?":

• At intervals today do a quick check-in with your thoughts.
• Am I present with whatever I am doing right now, or, am I dwelling in the past or fast-forwarding into the future?
• ​If you find your mind has strayed from the present, gently return it to whatever you are doing right now.

Revisiting the past and trying to anticipate the future are helpful only to a small degree, for example, it can be a good idea to see where we can improve on past behaviors, or plan ahead to use up the leftover veg from last night's dinner. However, many of us (me included) stray into realms of unhelpful time travel such as mulling over the wrongs people did to us, mistakes we should have known better than to make, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, fretting over next week's work presentation, or that family wedding we are dreading next July.
Dwelling in the past or future only invites them into your present, making 1 day next July last the 7 months from now until then. Do yourself a favour and spend no longer on it than the time it takes to pick a killer outfit, or take that lesson from the past mistake (i.e. attend to it in a practical way), and then leave the day in the past or the future, where it belongs. Your life is right here, right now, and corny as it sounds, each new moment is a new opportunity.

​-Apologies for the long break between posts, took me a while to get out of holiday mode!

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"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly." - The Buddha

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