Have you ever stopped to think why we do not live in the present? We spend our lives thinking about the future without realizing that what is really important is in the present.
When we are teenagers, we think about what our life will be like in college, when we are in college we only think about the world of work, when we enter the world we work to get married and have children and then we just want to get to retirement to start living our lifetime…
What is the problem? That when we come to retirement, our body no longer has the strength to live it.
We spend so much time planning and organizing our future that we forget to live the now. We believe that when we buy the next car, mobile phone or a larger house we will be happy. But when we have it, we realize that this is not so, since we will need more things to be happy.
We enter a loop in which we need to consume and get to buy and achieve certain types of things because we believe it is there, to get them, where is happiness. But that loop never ends, it consumes us.
To live here and now, reflections of a wise man
In the book Adventures of the Mystic we discover wise teachings about life and how to learn to enjoy them.
The protagonist, in this case, is the grandfather of Angela, the girl of Ruslan. One day they gather to go camping to an old place of Power and Angela’s grandfather is a sick old man of 70 years is encouraged to accompany them despite their limitations.
Suddenly, when everyone was together, the grandfather told the young men:
“How happy you are, this is because you leave nothing for later and live the way you want. The future will never come, only the present exists. Don´t wait for later, you might be sick and old, then you can do nothing, just to prepare to die. Do not set apart life, live your reality afterwards is nothing “
These wise words make us reflect that we only realize that we should live life when we are old, and that’s when we can not and it’s late.
We do not usually live life, not the way we want. They give us a program and we are forced to think that what we want is to finish our studies and everything else, suffering.
Instead of traveling and hiking we work in two shifts to save money for furniture like the neighbor or the ones we see in television advertising, and when we have them, we forget after a month that it is there.
But what we do not realize is that everyone can live a happy life, without waiting for retirement, living here and now, without waiting for money to solve our life, we must decide to celebrate, be joyful and dance without any reason, without postponing and without waiting.
No one will give us happiness, until we begin to connect with it. Here’s how to get closer to happiness day by day and live the present.
How to live in the present
Work on your true vocation.
Surely you know the famous quote about the theory of relativity that says that when you spend a minute with the person you love, that minute will seem a second, however, when you spend a minute with your hand in the fire, that minute will become eternal.
With work happens the same thing. When we work in what we are passionate about and in a dynamic and motivating work environment, time is flying by. Instead, when we work in professions that do not correspond to our interests or projects in which we do not believe or like, time will be eternal working on it.
Working on what we like and doing activities that we are passionate about will make us live in the present and we spend our time flying, we will think less about achieving long term goals and live more motivated by short term goals.
Discover your passions.
Many go through life living the lives of others, not knowing what we really like, what are our passions or the hobbies that really make us happy.
Maybe as a child you spent hours drawing but once you grew up, they told you that art was not worth anything and that if you wanted to have a “real” job, you had to study engineering, economics or medicine. Then you left the painting for following the rules of society.
Search within yourself, search your instincts, what you do to clear yourself, Write? Read? To draw? Do sport? To meditate? The nutrition? Knowing ourselves will help us to achieve happiness.
Get rid of the toxic people
We are social beings by nature. We need to be surrounded by people constantly to be happy and develop socially.
But many times we live surrounded by toxic people that weaken us and makes us lose the illusion. What is a Toxic Person? The one who criticizes us, nullifies us, does not trust our abilities, makes us feel less than we truly are, selfish people who envy us and do everything possible so that you do not achieve your goals.
Locate them and take them away from your life. You will realize that much of your unhappiness was provided by this type of social relationships.
Practice meditation
Meditative practices and yoga make us stop to think about ourselves and to leave the mind blank. Meditate on life, help us to live the moment and to take things slowly.
Enjoy the little things
We believe that buying us a better car will make us happy, a raise, a bigger house … but we forget the little things. What are the little things?
Spend a rainy afternoon watching a movie on the couch, get home and have your dog and your kids run into your arms, your favorite dessert, a full breakfast, the smell of wet ground, tread on the grass with bare feet, read Spiritual books that help us develop personally, the face of your sleeping partner or son …
These little things surround us and overwhelm us daily. We must stop to think about them and observe them, to live them. It will help us not to focus solely on thinking about the future and to be happier and more motivated in our day to day lives.
As the grandfather of Laura said in his wisdom reflections in the books Adventures of a Mystic:
“Being young the man has a lot of strength and is full of energy and like a fool does not think about life. But with each year, his energy decreases and he begins to regain sobriety. Old age and illness make the person see the reality of life “
So we should not let time slip. It is time to start this series of practices and focus on finding the meaning of life, understanding the truth, and above all, knowing yourself, finding God in yourself. Only this can bring eternal happiness to man.
