Why Is It So Hard to Be in the Present?
Connections to people, places, things, and linear time can disempower you.
This is true for everyone, everywhere: The only time that is actually, factually real, is the present. Right now. This moment, here and now.
The past has come and gone. What happened before can, will, and does impact your life. However, that impact can vary pretty wildly, especially if you leave it unobserved. More on that ahead.
The future is just that. The future. It hasn’t happened yet. What it will look like you can, will, and do impact. However, vast swaths of it are utterly not in your control. Things occur that can’t be predicted, expected, or otherwise controlled. It is uncertain, and it’s that uncertainty that often draws attention to the future in disempowering ways.
The past cannot be altered, changed, undone, or redone. Yet look at all the people who want to, for example, “Make America Great Again.” The whole concept is built on the notion of bringing the past into the present somehow. A past that, frankly, never truly existed. This is monstrously disempowering to the masses (which, on close examination, you can see is the point of it.)
Likewise, the future cannot be forced, shaped, accurately predicted, or molded into being. It will happen, the future will become the now. But you can’t do a damned thing about the economy, wars on the other side of the planet, the actions of anyone other than you, weather, and other factors.
The truth is that the present, this moment in time, is the only place you have genuine control. However, that, too, is limited.
What do you/can you control?
Externally, you control nothing. Sorry, that’s the truth. This is not about your car, thermostat, TV station, and the like. The outside world itself and the people, places, and things that make it up, you cannot and do not control.
You can’t make anyone, or anything, do something, think something, feel something. Yes, you can impact that, influence it, but you can’t control it. You have zero control over traffic, the weather, the idiotic thing that politician or business mogul said or did, your spouse, your dog, and anything not in your head, heart, and soul. That’s the truth.
What do you/can you control? Your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions. It doesn’t always feel like this is true. Shit happens that makes you think awful things, feel angry or sad, intend to harm via vengeance for a slight or wrong, approach things from a negative place, and act against your best interest.
Initial visceral reactions are not something you control. When you get fired from your job with zero warning, the immediate knee-jerk reaction simply IS. It might be anger, hurt, frustration, fear, uncertainty, and quite possibly a combination of two or more of the above.
However, after the instinctive reaction, you can assert control. How? Active conscious awareness. Mindfulness.
To be mindful and take control over your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions, you need to work in the present. Be here now.
Probably the single largest reason why this is so hard is because nobody teaches you how to be in the present.
Learning how to be in the present
Almost every human being on Planet Earth goes to school during their formative years. You learn many things in school, some quite useful like reading, writing, math, and the basics of critical thinking and reasoning. Most also learn about elements of history, sociology, chemistry, biology, and the like.
I’m not knocking these things. Learning about them is important. The problem is that you learn a great deal about the past via history while focusing on future tests, grades, and graduations. The present? That’s accepted as simply existing with zero focus put on it.
Being in the present? In my 12 years of schooling followed by 4 years of college, nobody ever taught me that. My parents didn’t teach me that. To learn how to be in the present I’ve had to research, study, and learn on my own.
For many, many, many people, this is an alien, foreign concept. Many think being “in the present” is hippy-dippy, liberal-snowflakey, New-Agey, “woke” bullshit. Touchy-feely emotional garbage.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Why? Because every single human being has their own unique, individual perspective of reality. The only way to recognize this, to know it and understand it, you must be in the present.
The first step to being in the present is by asking questions of yourself in the here and now. Specific questions like,
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What is my intent?
- Am I approaching this from a positive or negative place?
- What am I doing?
The answers to all these questions can only be found right here, right now. That’s because only here and now, in the present, can you find the answers to them.
Empowerment is in the present
The mechanisms of modern society tend to disempower. This is how “they” create artificial controls over other people. Look how many companies are moving to force employees – proven more efficient and happy working from home – back to offices. Why? Control. Also, allow me to be cynical here a moment, because they own or rent office spaces that are losing them money right now.
Almost every notion of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency is artificial and designed to disempower. Blaming immigrants, women, liberals, or any other group is a tool of disempowerment. All of these draw your attention outside to the things over which you have ZERO control.
You can take back the focus and be more in control of your life experience via empowerment. To get that empowerment, you must be mindful, which means you must be in the present, here and now. That mindfulness lets you change, alter, and assume control of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions – the only things you truly control.
Empowerment is not for a select few. “They” aren’t somehow more worthy or deserving of it. Empowerment is your birthright. Who is living your life? You. Did you appear on this planet to be a veritable slave to the government, business mogul, or other organization? Of course not.
When you strive to be in the present you become empowered. Being empowered opens the way to making informed choices and decisions for yourself. Those, in turn, can positively impact the world at large.
When more people work to be in the present, the machines of disempowerment start to come apart. Only here and now can genuine change occur.
Recognize that you are worthy and deserving of this empowerment. Pause, reflect, and question – here and now, in the present – everything.
Can you see how connections to people, places, things, and linear time can disempower you?
This is the six-hundred-seventieth (670) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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