A Matter of Choice

I have been writing about the importance and the benefits of living in the moment for a long time. The Present is really the only time and place when we are truly living, alive, with all of the wonderful benefits that arise from living in the moment. Here is a short but clear example of how and why one would chose to do this. Please use this example to work "living in the moment" into your lives. It's Magic!

A Matter of Choice
by neimad

I was out at a play the other week; I had gone along with my mother and her friend on the promise of going out for dinner after. It was a small thing and the play was interesting enough, I was told it would only be about an hour long which was good because I was very hungry as I had been working out with my clubbells not too long before. When it finished, however, there was an announcement that there would be a short break and then we would return for some music…
Upon returning to my seat I found myself feeling a little frustrated as it was getting late and I was getting really hungry, and thoughts wondering just how long it was going to take were entering my head. It was at this point I realised something.

I had a choice!

I could choose to sit there and grumble, and feel bored and frustrated, wishing it would all hurry up and end so I could feed my grumbling belly. Or I could relax and enjoy the music. The first option is a little pointless as it doesn't make time go any faster, and all it serves to do is lessen my ability to enjoy what turned out to be some beautiful music. So, as I have been finding I am doing with increasing regularity, I chose the second option and I enjoyed every moment of the amazing Turkish flute and weird bagpipes and so on that followed.

It's an amazing thing, this choice. For myself, the more I choose to be in the moment and to just enjoy wherever I am and whatever I am doing for the simple reason that I am currently there and it's not possible to be anywhere else, the more I find that negative emotions and feelings of the past have been disappearing. It is less and less that I ever find myself bored, or depressed, or angry, or frustrated. I have also found that my work ethic has improved (I was a very slack worker in the past) along with my ability to listen to and have successful interactions with others. In general my enjoyment of life has improved out of sight!

Nowadays I honor where I am now. I enjoy my journey and find that every moment is a new moment, it's never the same and I'm always growing. It's really very exciting.

All great spiritual teachers have spoken about this sense of presence in some way or another. But it's not something mystical, it's not something unattainable. It's merely a matter of choice.
Each moment of every day we are faced with this. We can be caught in our fantasies and daydreams of the future and be dissatisfied with where we are now, we can be lost in the past and constantly wishing we had done things differently, or we can be right here right now.
It's a choice we all have.