Thinking about NOW

Now is the time.

Living in the moment.  Being in the now.  You've heard the phrases - make the most of the present - it's all you've got.  Well, yes.

When do you live?  Now.  Seriously.  When does life occur?  Now.  I know, you can look at the fossil and read the history book - look at life long ago.  When did that life occur?  Now.

When many people think about time, it is imagined as a track, much like a rail road track, on which the person moves.  The track behind is the past.  The track yet trod is the future.  We are conscious of having lived, living, and continuing to live.  The concepts of past, present, and future are well defined in our daily experience.  Morning, afternoon, night.  We get it.

Let's ratchet up a notch and reconsider our movement along that time track.  We don't move.  The track moves, so to speak.  When do you experience morning?  Now.  When do you experience afternoon?  Now.  When do you experience night?  Now.  Conceptually we can order experience, but experience can only exist now.  Therefore, life is possible only now.

Imagine yourself amidst a swirling universe, with people and experiences coming to you as you allow them into your now experience.  All of that drawn to you is attracted by your attention to it - Law of Attraction.  In this sense, the future is not something that happens to you, but you happen to your future.  Whatever you are experiencing now is the result of your consciousness.  If your experience is not as happy as you instinctively know it should be, then by changing your thinking (beacons that attract similar conditions/situations/people) you affect what you experience.  You're not helplessly riding the rails of time into experiences, but crafting (aware or unaware) the schema which form your now experience.

"But George, I remember when I was five years old and..."  Indeed you do.  When were you five?  Now.  Are you five years old now?  No.  Things are remembered only now.  The future is imagined now.  The past was experienced now and, of course, the future can only exist now.  Now is a slippery thing, but if you can wrap your head around it, so to speak, then managing your life becomes more effective.

"Life is too short to _________."  That well-intentioned thought is a good illustration of the railroad track version of life moving along time.  I'd suggest replacing "short" with "precious" or "important" or "valuable".  She how that alters the intent?  It pulls the concept into the moment, the now.  In effect, why put up with ________(fill in the blank) when you don't have to? Or want to?  Right now, this moment, you can decide, choose, determine, allow (any number of verbs will work) what you want to experience now.  Knowing that your now decision will attract similar conditions/situations/people.

Granted, in order to experience our luscious three dimensional world we have to create a time frame in which objects move about.  That requires a space to move about and a rate of movement (time).  It all happens now, but perception creates a track of before now, now, after now.  It's a rich and wonderful experience, and we love it!  Yet if we can mentally rise up a notch and see the process as it is created, then the importance of now is fathomed.  What you think now affects the movement of conditions, situations, people, into your life orbit.

Life is too much fun to experience by default.  Being aware now directs more thought power to the experience.  Life becomes more fun by intent.  Now.  It's when you are.