The New Year is Not for Starting Over.
The NOW is for starting over.
There is no GOD. There is only NOW.
In this moment lives the answers you are looking for…and the next…and the next.
The very search for god in and of itself is the denial of the greatest truth to ever exist, and it’s hidden in plain sight.
Whether you consider this life a simulation or the real deal…you’re still here. Even in your dreams, your visions are a translation grounded in your personal life experience. The food that sustains you, the knowledge that expands you, and the experiences that fulfill you all exist in the now. There are very few books on the now if you feel that it’s apart from you. But when you see it, you realize that all books are about the now.
There is no thing that is not about the now.
Even NOW.
I do have great and horrible memories.
They all existed in the past moment and they echo into my now. I carry them for whatever reason. But there is no other place to carry things into besides the now.
I can reference these ideas and experiences whenever I like to create a better now than before.
You may lose sight of a lot in your bullshit infested life, but your ability to stay in the present moment is as good as it gets. Even if you’re broke, alone, and covered in filth…the only thing that will make it better is really sitting in it.
Never lose sight of the now.
The worst part about losing present moment awareness is that you don’t always notice when you lose it.
The only way to really notice it is if you can also notice when you are lost in thought.
You could be fantasizing about something.
You could be spinning in anger and hate.
You could also just be in a cloud…a fog or a haze.
They are all signs that you are not operating as well as you could be mentally, and therefore physically.
Some people catch it right away.
There’s that moment of, “Wow. Why do I feel like I’m in a cloud?” or “It feels like the world is separated from me.”
Catching the layer separating you from reality is as good as the security system gets.
Self-Awareness.
I was always in my thoughts; I was always in anxiety mode; I was always freaking out or angry or emotionally out of control, or replaying fears in my head and just never being at one with the world.
If you’re a father lost in thought, you can’t be fully a father.
If you’re a CEO lost in thought, you can’t run a business well.
Anyway, I don’t want to go too far with why I consider present moment awareness important.
If you feel like you’re a loser…you’re doing it in the now.
If you hate a politician, you’re doing it now.
If you give up on life…NOW.
If you love chocolate lava cake…you get it. (Also, send me some.)
Of course you’re going to set a goal, and fail, and try again.
When do you do ALL of those things?
…
Are you fucking getting it?
Actually…you ARE…always getting it…
(now, lol)
“BUT I DON’T LIKE OR WANT MY NOW.”
You know what the fuck to do.
MY now does not measure up to my desired life, in the least.
But if I keep escaping into a world that does not exist or ruminating on a trauma that has been gone for some time, I remove the only power I have to improve my now.
Above all, your entry level goal should to always be present in the moment with whatever it is you’re doing…
…screen or no screen, rich or poor, happy or sad.
Stop building up all this stuff in your head that doesn’t even fucking exist.
Living in your fantasies and your fears.
Separate yourself from THAT and attach yourself to THIS.
You have 5 senses and you abandon all of them to think about the irrelevant.
You think you’re going to meditate and send out a frequency to a god that doesn’t exist or a universe that does not serve you.
Stop ignoring WHAT you are.
HUMAN.
SENTIENT AND PRESENT.
PROGRAMMER AND PROGRAMMED.
Sure…sometimes the present sucks.
Making it better by mentally escaping is suicide.
You’re killing yourself just enough to not be here.
Just be here now.
The present moment is not always the most comfortable thing, and sometimes it’s extremely enjoyable. And for the person that is very used to being in their head, maybe someone who is kind of an introvert, being in the present moment can be really difficult at first.
But you have to come to terms with what you are looking at, what you are smelling, what you are tasting, what you are seeing, what you are touching—all are things that are absolutely real.
There is no higher truth than that: that you are here, right now, in this place.
The New Year doesn’t matter.
Unless it’s NOW.
Your life doesn’t matter.
Unless you’re present with it.
If you read that and it didn’t spark a feeling of some sort of nervousness or fear, or maybe urgency... then you don’t appreciate the value of the present moment.
You don’t know how intensely valuable it is for you to be here right now.
There is absolutely nothing else that you have in this life except for this moment right here, right now.
Your goals are carved in the Now.
Your relationships are sparked in the Now.
Your fitness is carved in the Now.
You cut fat by dieting now.
By the way, you are not going to achieve your goals right now.
The here and the now do not allow one to be foolish or to lie to themselves. That now requires action. Most of the action that the now requires will be something that you will experience on the way to the goal you are seeking to achieve.
So I’m not trying to tell you to go crazy and take all the action that you can in the next 24 hours until you completely burn out, break a leg, or something like that.
I am telling you to stop waiting on your goals.
And to give you a little bit of a pro tip...
I’m also going to tell you to give up on some of your goals.
If you’re the kind of person that has like 50 zillion goals and you’re trying to squash them all into a week, stop doing that.
There is no greater goal for you to achieve than to be here in the present moment as best as you can at any given time of day.
That is the ultimate.
And even though we are always here in the now, we are aware of time.
We understand time is going by, and we will run out of it, and at some point, we will pass away.
So I would encourage you to really only pick your absolute favorite goals. If there’s something that’s not that big of a deal to you, but maybe you feel pressured by family or society or whatever...screw it, don’t do it.
To give you a little bit of a silly example, I am currently working on cutting some fat and learning Capoeira.
Now, I currently have access to martial arts schools that are absolutely free to join.
However, none of them teach Capoeira.
The old me would have somehow tried to integrate these new things with my most important and favorite goals. That would have burned me out on energy. That would have taken a lot of time from me. That would have also taken lots of progress from the things that I wanted to do the most because I was too busy spreading time between way too many other activities.
I mean, I think I learned about “The Power of Now” over five years ago, for sure.
And it wasn’t until like maybe three months ago that I finally got into it.
I just have a coconut head, you know what I mean?
It takes a while for lessons to get in. And afterwards, it’s twice as hard to get them out.
Find ways to bring your mind into the present moment.
That is really the only thing that I could possibly wish for you to truly achieve. Because it makes your life so much better.
All the things that you do become more enjoyable. The conversations you have are nicer, the food tastes better, the air you breathe feels better...
Things are better when you are mentally, physically, and spiritually here in the moment to experience it all.
The New Year you think means so much doesn’t mean a fucking thing until it becomes a part of the now.
And then, it’s past.