What are You Going to Do?-Daily Meditation 1.12.23

Today’s quotation:

What are you going to do?
Are you going to keep looking backward, full of anger,
resentment and unfulfilled desire?
Or are you going to be here now?
Because everything is available for you in the here and now.
Love, compassion, silence, bliss, and Oneness.-Leonard Jacobson

Today’s Meditation:

I know several people who tend to live in the past.  They’re full of anger and resentment and can’t stop thinking about what happened yesteryear.  It’s just about all they talk about, and they don’t have many positive things to say about it.  From the past come to their excuses as to why they aren’t living fully now, why they’re miserable, and all of those reasons have to do with what other people “did” to them.  They spend almost no time in the present moment, living their lives fully and enjoying the gifts that surround them right here and right now.  And they’re never happy, to say the least.

We must learn how to live in the present to live our lives fully.  We must learn to be aware of all that we have and all that’s available to us to appreciate it and take advantage of our opportunities fully.  The people I know who are focused on the past never see many of their opportunities because they’re still focused on another place and another time, and they miss what’s often right in front of them.

I love what Leonard says, though, that “everything is available for you in the here and now.”  That means everything.  And it’s a true statement.  There’s no way to access the love that was available yesterday, and there isn’t any way that we can access the love that will be available tomorrow–we can only access what’s here with us, today.  It’s a simple fact of life, one that we can take advantage of right here and right now by devoting ourselves to living in the present moment and loving all that surrounds us each day.

Are you here now?  Every part of you, including your thoughts?  The body is always here, now, but the mind tends to wander to other times and places.  One way we can help ourselves be happy, loving people is to stop letting it wander and keep it focused on the present.  A nice little trip now and then into the past can be nice, but our responsibility to ourselves and to those who love us and whom we love is to stay focused on the present.

Questions to consider:

Where is your mind most of the time–on the tasks and people before you and with you?

Why is it so easy to get caught up in resentments and desires of the past?

How can you keep yourself focused on the present moment instead of things from yesterday?

For further thought:

To a large degree, the measure of our peace of mind is determined by how much we can live in the present moment.  Irrespective of what happened yesterday or last year and what may or may not happen tomorrow, the present moment is where you are–always!-Richard Carlson

If you missed yesterday’s Daily Meditation, you can find it here.