The Power of Now

I'm a daydream believer. Thinking is easy, that's why I like it. Acting is hard. But to act in accordance with ones thinking is the hardest.

Often, I have stumbled by not paying attention to where I was in the moment. Sometimes it’s physical repercussions like stubbing my toe, bumping my head, or tripping down the stairs. But, mostly, it’s the mental consequences of wasting an opportunity to create an inflection point. I get distracted, obsessing over past events and what I should have done or said or worrying about future scenarios.

It happens to American football receivers. They run their route, the quarterback throws to them, and they get distracted hearing the steps of a defender closing in or planning their run after they catch the ball, and they end up dropping the reception. The mental concentration to stay present is critical to their performance.

Too often, we get distracted thinking about the future. Instead of being present at this moment, we relitigate the past and worry about the future.

Please think of how many times you have built anxious scenarios about some future event and followed it down argumentative rabbit holes only to see nothing like your fantasy play out. That is a waste of energy and a wasted opportunity to do something to move things forward at that moment.

Mark Twain said,

‘I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.’

While so distracted, we take our eye off the ball and often fail to make the next correct move. No particular wind is helpful if you forget where you are sailing.

We have to remain present to what is in front of us. Staying mindful and present is what meditation practice teaches.

Small actions in the right direction, one after the other, are the only way to achieve big goals. Actions are cumulative, and without doing the right thing now, you can’t make the next right move.

Here is an old folk tale that illustrates the point:

Once upon a time, an oil merchant was going to market. He had his clay pots of oil arranged on a flat basket. He engaged a workman for two coins to carry the basket. As the workman went along on the way to market, he thought:

I now have two coins. I will purchase food with one, and with the other, I will invest. I will buy chickens. I will tend the chickens, and they will breed and multiply, and soon, I will have many chickens. I will sell the eggs, and I will buy goats with the money. And when the goats multiply, I will sell some and buy cows. I will sell milk and exchange some of the calves for buffaloes. As the buffaloes breed, I will sell some and buy land and start farming. Then as a prominent landowner, I will marry and have children. After planting all day, I will hurry home from my work in the fields. My wife will bring me a cool drink, and I will have a much-deserved rest. My children will say to me, “Father, hurry and wash up for supper,” but I will shake my head and say, ‘No, not yet, I want to enjoy the peace of the garden for another moment!”

At this point in his reverie, he shook his head vigorously, and the basket fell to the ground smashing all the pots of oil.

The oil merchant yelled at him and said he must pay for the oil and the pots. But the worker responded that he had lost much more than that, and the oil man asked him how that could be. So the workman explained how he would get fowls and then goats and then oxen and buffaloes and land with his wages. And how his glorious vision led to spilling the basket. At that, the oil merchant roared with laughter and said, “Well, now I have readjusted the account, and I find that our losses are equal so that we will call it even.” And so saying they went their ways laughing.

We tend to fall prey to getting caught up in our visions and forget to focus on the small but critical moves we need to take now. During these times, it’s crucial to stop wondering about the future or fretting about the past and return our focus to what we can do right now. Return to the urgency of now.

Do what you can with what you have from where you are.

Buddha said, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

Act from that point of power.