There’s no Time Like Right Now
It’s hard to be present when the world demands so much from you. The other day I was going through some old boxes with stuff I’ve had since childhood. After digging through it all I found an old Polaroid of me dressed up as a rapper for Halloween. Some of the other contents included an old worn-out American flag, a new box of Q-tips, and little knick-knacks like mint boxes, buttons, and an antique pencil sharpener. They were items left over from a time when things weren’t so chaotic. When you could listen to music in your bedroom on your CD player or flip through the radio station channels and record your favorite song using a cassette tape.
I remember those days.
It’s when we slowed down and had to do work. It’s when the world wasn’t full of content creators, that “back in the day” would be considered absurd. It’s when we actually had to go out and make friends and rely on real people.
My brother made fun of me one time when I said the “good old days”. I guess he thought that I sounded old. He has a problem with the past. He thinks that he’s right all the time. He can’t look back and realize that it’s otherwise. Because the past will tell you things that you’re not sure of. It will let you know of your supposed right and wrongs or the experiences that taught you a lesson.
It’s like a roadmap.
The past will tell you things you didn’t know
The past is a great teacher. It comes and goes and leaves you with a great lesson or a bad taste in your mouth. We all have experiences in life that either left us feeling elated, or high and dry. Sometimes all you can do is look back at it all and say “maybe next time”.
Maybe next time I’ll get that new job.
Maybe next time that girl will want me.
Maybe next time I’ll travel more often.
Maybe next time…
And on and in it goes.
Maybe next time there won’t be a next time because all we have is now.
The future will always be uncertain
It’s better to live in the present. If I did, I wouldn’t get condescending and rude remarks from my siblings. I would learn that every experience good or bad is a gift. The future will always remain elusive. That’s why it’s so enticing. We always want something that we can’t see.
The uncertainty of it all drives us mad. So we go crazy for the inevitable.
We go get that new job because it pays more and will work out better for us in the future.
We go into that relationship thinking that it will work out better for us in the future.
We go travel more so that we can show our friends on social media how cool we are in the future.
The same tired refrain.
Boredom kicks in and before you know it experiences seem to run dry. I know, because I’ve been there.
The present is the solution to being
After you’re done taking out the dirty laundry of life it never fails to look backward or forward and ask “what if”? There are a million ways to look at life. And a million possibilities with utter complexities.
We can look forward to the future with dismay or boredom. We can look back at the past with regret or happiness. Or we can be in the now and transcend both.
It’s your choice.
The present will always be here because it’s all we have. In the present, we let go of uncertainty because there is nothing to look forward to. In the present, we don’t look back because our greatest teacher is in the current moment.
So, we can say with confidence:
All I have is now.
All I will be is now.
All I do is now.
There’s plenty of time like right now to be alive. Therefore nothing is boring.
