live in the moment

it very hard to stay in the moment. I keep finding myself making plans in the future for our move back to the Mainland.

Good thing I reread Tolle’s A New Earth last nite and was reminded about focusing on my breath as a way to stay present and stop thinking.

but other times, I let myself go insane. I am off on a weekend break tomorrow and i’m anxious about speaking the language and wondering if i’ll even enjoy it. I usually get some kind of travel anxiety even though I love travelling but this is a little ridiculous. I just need to keep telling myself that even if I only see one site but spend the rest of the time relaxing it’ll be worth it. I just want to ‘chill out’. I am also keen to get back to focus on my goals, so i’m full of in-the-future thoughts (although the goal-focus one isn’t a bad one).

I am going to make a pact with myself though that this trip is the last trip (in europe) where I will travel by aeroplane. No more airports for me :)

I am pretty certain that this is gonna be the hardest thing on my list for me to achieve, and i have some pretty ambitious things on there. I spend most of my time daydreaming and i live in my own little world. I guess I’m so unhappy with my life that it seems so much easier to just pretend it’s something it’s not. But i think if i spent less time making up scenarios in my mind about how i would like my life to be and spent more time doing things that i loved then i would end up having the life i was dreaming about all along.

But for me it’s a lot easier said than done.

I guess this is one of the most difficult things to do. I’ve always lived in the future, dreaming about one day when I will become the person I’ve always wanted to be, having the life I’ve always dreamt of and all that, thoughts which has made me do lots of silly things which I didn’t want to do in the first place. So now I’ve decided only to do whatever I feel like doing in this exact moment, stop regretting about the past and stop worrying about the future.

In the end, I guess this site doesn’t make much sense, since it focuses on obtaining goals which, of course, are in the future. But that’s okay, I just have to remember that I don’t have to go on with the eternal quest for achieving my true potential. It’s not necessary to become someone, because I already am. And that’s enough. But there is no need to stop doing things, I’ll just do whatever feels right, in the moment.

This is my cat, Snugs. All she ever does is live in the moment, especially if that means she can sleep on or in someplace new (boxes are a favorite).

Perhaps that unwavering respect for the present is one reason that she’s lived to be nearly 20 years old so far, still happy and relatively healthy!

Perhaps that’s also one reason she’s forever trying to get me to slow down and live a little (preferably while petting her)? Maybe it’s good for me too?

She’s calling now, as I write this. I’m going to go give her a good “thank you” for the object lesson.

I need to shake off this daydreaming habit. It’s getting to the point where it’s not intelligent anymore. I know that I am more comfortable with the idea of maybe having a partner but that it is not for me right now. My priorities are music, portuguese and having a body I love (via exercising and eating well). Professionalism towards my music and physical confidence are things that need to be in play for me before I even think about it therefore I have no real need to fantasise as I am aware of what I am working towards. If I fantasise, I lose time, energy, attention and effort that I could be putting towards such goals. I want to live presently and in my own world again, fully connected to myself. I used to tell myself to describe my surroundings in order to keep myself present and it always worked. I want to do this again.

Yesterday I did some on that living in the moment stuff. Everything seemed more vivid. I’m the kind of person that gets excited thinking about the future, or loves to relive moments in my mind, so I often wondered if living in the moment would always be worthwhile, but so far it is. Today I’m going to try my hardest to live in the moment. This moment!

I feel like I am always looking towards the future. Once I complete something, I don’t give myself time to just relax and soak in my achievements. I am constantly moving forward, and I would like to learn to reflect upon my past and present. Always living for the next day is not satisfying. I need to learn to make the most of everyday and stop planning for the future. Well, planning ahead is good…I’m not saying it is bad. But when it is all you do, then it is bad.

I so often find that I’ve done things without even thinking about them. I often get all the way to the car and wonder if I locked my apartment when I left. I can go back and find that, yes, I locked it. But because I wasn’t “in that moment”, I locked the door unconsciously, as if in a trance, or on autopilot. I have found that Living in the Moment…is a lot harder that it sounds! It takes a lot of practice, and it requires that I do something I am not used to—slowing down. In order for me to live in the moment, I must slow down, and pay attention. I am so focused on whatever my task or goal is, that I oftentimes walk right past the beauty of the moment…the beautiful sunny sky, the trees in bloom around me, the feel of the breeze against my face.

So today, I spent some time, alone, just practicing being in the moment. I sat still, I listened, I watched. I let my five senses actually “sense”. And it was amazing. But even so, I still struggled with the noise of other thoughts, outside of the now, tempting me to set aside this moment and plan ahead or solve some issue. I must practice every day, and as often as possible. So now I’m concentrating on this moment, these words, my fingers against the keyboard, the hum of the computer. Practicing!

Through serendipity, there was a new entry at one of my favorite blogs (zenhabits.net) addressing this subject…here’s the link:
http://zenhabits.net/2009/04/the-mindfulness-guide-for-the-super-busy-how-to-live-life-to-the-fullest/
Enjoy this moment…

more than 2 years down the road, i realise that this is the basic guide to living a more fulfilling life and for me, a happier life. it just makes sense… i cannot change the past – the abuse, the drug addiction, the bad choices, people hating me, being cheated on, my friend killing himself… my choice in life is to be happy. i realised that carrying such negative baggage with me does not benefit me in anyway. can you think of one? i choose to accept them as lessons in life and take from it the positives. at the end of the day, they really made me stronger. you can NEVER change the past, is it not best to deal with what you are faced with now?

it is this present moment which matters because it is the only thing we can change. i can never bring my friend back but i can certainly ensure i more mindful and caring of those who are still around.

who are we to predict the future? worrying is just that. thinking of something that has not even happened. why do we concern ourselves so much with things we don’t know will happen. i wasted so much time worrying about how my relationship will work out that i was in a foul mood most of the time which of course caused many fights because one bad thing just leads to another bad thing which results in bad things happening… it all changed when i put myself in the here and now. i am with you now, i will be happy now and i will love you now. every second is the now, every minute, every hour, every day, every week… it all becomes NOW.

the past, can you change it? the future, do you know what will happen? it is that basic. just not that easy to practice :) the first step is to make a decision… how do you want to live your life?