Do you know there is something unique about the present? It is not just about the present time, but it is about present – the gift.
Many of us do not realize it, but the present is a gift, a huge gift, the gift of happiness.
You might wonder how it is so. Read on carefully, else you might be deprived of the greatest gift of all.
What Does Everyone Yearn For?
Can you answer in one word, what does everyone in this world yearn for? What is that elusive goal that almost everyone is looking and searching for, in life?
It is the fulfillment of their dreams, the sense of achievement. But what happens when one dream is fulfilled? There is again a race for fulfillment of the next dream. This race goes on and on in life.
People live for their dreams, fulfillment of their goals. They always keep looking at the future. They are completely focused on the future. Everyone supports this view.
However, in the process, most ignore the present. They live and go about their daily routine mechanically. For them the love of a child, the longing of their family, does not matter anymore. In their quest for future, they leave behind their happiness.
Those whose Life is Full of Regrets
There is another set of people for whom the past was the best time to live. They keep on thinking and remembering the golden years of the past. They are nostalgic about everything that happened in the years gone by.
Among them are found a set of people who are chronic complainants. They find everything wrong around them. They are on the search for an ideal situation, which never comes.
Some put the blame on others, circumstances, or on their bad luck. These people are those who can never be successful in their life.
They refuse to take control of their life. They continue to live in their comfort zone which is their past. They can never feel the happiness that lies around them.
Where Do You Stand?
Between these two extremes, where do you stand? Take an honest dispassionate view; and then answer truthfully to yourself.
Thinking of the past or being optimistic about the future is not bad in itself. Living in either, is bad.
You must have noticed, every car has a big windscreen so that we can view the road ahead, as we drive. There is also a small rear-view mirror to look back at what you left behind. It would be disastrous if we interchange the sizes of these views are interchanged!
That is how our life should be; we must focus on the present moment.
The Child is the Father of Man
There is a lot we can learn from children. A child is never worried about what happened in the past, nor is he scared about the future. Children are always joyful and brimming with happiness. This is because they live in the present.
The present is where we exist. It gives us the power to change our destiny, our future. If we take care of the present, everything else is taken care of.
Today’s present is tomorrow’s past. If we do our best in the present, we can leave a glorious past behind. The present also decides our future. If we use our present with mindfulness, we will be writing our own future.
That is how powerful, the present is, it controls both the past and the future. Yet, we often ignore the present and embrace either the past or the future.
The Greatest Gift Amongst All
Happiness is the most sought after gift. Yet we find that it eludes us. We can see the happiness of others, yet fail to feel it ourselves.
Let us ask ourselves, can we become happy in the past? We cannot.
We may have been happy in the past, but that is just a memory now.
Can we be happy in the future? We may be, and that is what everyone wishes for. But, we can neither guarantee happiness in future nor feel it. It is just a hope.
The present brings to us the greatest gift of all, the gift of happiness. We can be happy only in the present.
Happiness is a feeling, and a feeling can be experienced only in the present. This is the greatest gift of all, the ability to be happy, which is real and the best of all emotions and feeling.
Anger and regret are emotions caused by the past, worry and fear are emotions caused by the future.
Happiness and joy are the motions which we relish in the present. To stay blessed, live in the present.
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