It IS All About You …NOW
There was a show on PBS awhile ago called Connections. The creator (and narrator) of the show, a science historian by the name of James Burke discussed how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events built off one another in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology. I absolutely love this kind of stuff - seemingly disconnected facts and the synergy that binds them.
This brings me to today’s epiphany. Actually, it was yesterday but that’s OK.
I’m a big fan of Eckhart Tolle. He is now well known to many more millions of people because Oprah (notice how we rarely use her last name when referring to Ms. Winfrey?) has “found him.” I read the power of Now about 4 years ago and have been slowly working my way to The Now ever since (that sounds a little strange, eh?)
In one of the teleclasses (held every Monday evening), Eckhart said something to the effect that “the past and the future can only exist in the Now.” If you think about it for just a second, you can see the wisdom in that statement. When you are thinking about something that happened in the past, you are thinking about it Now. When you are worried about something that may happen in the future, you are worried about in the Now. I personally believe a lot of the stress in our lives can be shed if we are less conditioned by our old stories (the past) and less concerned about the future by living more in the present.
When you “get” this, your life will change significantly for the better. One of the reasons is that it will eliminate fear from your life.
“Huh?” you might be thinking, “How is that going to happen?” That’s where the connection comes in. A good friend of mine, Jim Britt, defines fear as “Taking something that has happened to you in the past, projecting it into the future and experiencing it in the present.” Combine this with Tolle’s past and future only existing in the Now. If you eliminate the past as a consideration in your present (you cannot change it), there is no basis for your fear. If you ignore what you seek in the future as something lacking in present, all that is left is Now.
And the source of denial of the present is the ego; it holds onto the hurts and victories of the past as this is how it is defined. It craves the future because then it (the ego) will be more, more significant, more famous, more … whatever.
After all that, I have come to the conclusion that the source of fear can largely be attributed to our egos.
I integrate this concept into The Wealth Manifesto, specifically in the last chapter which discusses enjoying your quality of life now, not at some as yet undefined date in the future when you may have achieved some goal, financial independence, enlightenment or whatever.
You may never get there. Enjoy Now…does Now work for you?
