Previously, in the first of this series I looked at ‘The Power of Now’ 2009 calendar for January which we believe focused on Forgiveness. I thought it would be a good idea to give you our thoughts, my wife & I that is, and our interpretations both in theoretical and practical terms.
So let’s take a look at February. The image for the month is a sky full of lightning and the words are as follows:
Time is an illusion: The more you are focused on time – past and future – the more you miss the Now. The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant. The was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.
This is a trickier one than January but for us it meant that by being distracted about the past and future one tends to spend less time living today. That is not to say that analysing the past and preparing for the future are not valuable parts of one’s life management skill set. On the contrary, both of those represent positive contributions and should not be disengaged. What is being discouraged is the more common use of our time that is less productive: worrying.
Both analysis and preparation do not relate to time; they just happen to have a nominal contextual setting; the past and the present. However they are outside of time in and of themselves.
Worrying on the other hand relates entirely to time in our view. I wish I had done it differently or I hope it all works out ok are entirely dependent, through the lack of a tangible contribution, on a point in time. Analysis and preparation are about identifying right actions to problems whilst worrying is more about wishing and hoping. All stress and no action.
So, stress is ok as long as it is tied to action, which makes it productive. It then becomes a part of the now as opposed to a premonition of, or reflection of, the now.
To exist in the now is not to ignore the past and future but to accept that neither are now. To worry is to bring the past and the present into the now.
Make sense?
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Great article Tepsy, very thought-provoking. I find it amusing that only humans have “time”. The world and its other inhabitants have seasons/days that change from year to year few extra “days” here and there but there is no rigidity to time. We are who and what we are. We create this “time” and have no control over it. It seems such a strange things to design then. I agree with your comment about wasting time with worry. It is a very human thing, to fret our time away with something that does nothing. In the end you need to identify what you ahve control over, what you can change and let go of the worry that is attached to everything else.