Living for now – Julian Summerhayes

Everything… and nothing.

We’re forever searching:

A better life

A better job

A happier way

We have everything we need.

Just imagine you could quiet your internal voice. I don’t mean turn it off completely – that would be dangerous – but to limit your thoughts to those associated with gratitude, love and truth. (Positive affirmation is never enough. I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.)

It seems that we’re all driven to achieve something. But if that’s the case, why is it that as we grow older, we understand what’s really important: friendship, love, respect, humour, selflessness and an acceptance of what is.

For me, it’s paradoxical that I exhort change – to become what we truly are – but the bigger part of me understands that our greatest gift is to recognise the power of now i.e. living mindfully in this moment.

I know that even the pursuit of living mindfully is part of our searching, enquiring mind, but for me the greater the focus on living in the now, the happier I am.

For most people, they make do with a fleeting glimpse of the power of total immersion in the now. (Some people talk about being in the zone or flow – see the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – but living mindfully is a daily practice.) However, it’s never enough.

Just imagine a world where we focused on living without judgment, in the present and enjoyed more of what we did, no matter how mundane.


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