The Power Of Now: Why You Must Embrace Living In The Moment And Relinquish Control

There are 6,775,235,842 people in the world and each of us navigates good and bad experiences in our lives.

Every single one of us has dwelled on the past, wishing, hoping and praying that we could go back and change things or looked forward to the future to plan on something that will make things feel better.

Sound about right?

Well, if you think too much about how circumstances could be better if they were different or if you are terrified of the future, know now that you are not alone. The difference, however, between you and some of the 6,775,235,841 people in the world is your potential outlook on life.

You will have so, so many experiences in your life, many of which you won’t be able to control. Each second you live is a moment in which you experience something; it's your choice how you embrace it.

A given moment could be as simple as enjoying a cup of tea or as complicated as not being able to speak with someone you deeply love. In these active moments, you will go through several emotions, but regardless of the context, the common experience that each moment should nurture is being present.

While in a moment, you must choose to live in it — good or bad — and take something away from every experience to ensure you have a better tomorrow, even if just in the slightest. At the end of the moment, no matter how much you wish, hope and pray, the past is the past and the future is ahead.

With each experience, we learn and take something out of it to help us to move forward and look ahead to the clean slate of a new day.

As Eckhart Tolle stated in the “Power of Now,” — which I highly recommend everyone should read at least once in a lifetime — “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”

Your consciousness is your outlook on life and how you choose to live it. Whatever an experience entails, accept it for what it is and focus on making this moment better. This focus is the only thing you can control.

I have been in your shoes and I am speaking from experience. There will be countless moments when you will not have answers to many things, which is completely normal. Do not allow anyone to let you think otherwise.

You will have bad moments and good moments. Embrace this and take the next step forward in your life. You are not meant to know or be able to control everything. You are simply meant to live your life and navigate it the best way you know how to do it; this is all we can do.

From this day forward, you must choose to live in the now and navigate your life moment by moment.

Photo via Patagonia Tumblr