One of the main causes of unhappiness is that most of us choose to dwell, or daydream, about the past or the future. We do not wish to live in the present and leverage the most from it.
We largely tend to look back on incidents that shaped our lives, most of it in a negative way, and constantly say to ourselves, “What if it had happened this way….?”
If we are not romanticising the past, we are trying to blame others for the way things eventually happened. I have come across so many people who have failed to accept the past; whether it is in terms of broken relationships or lost fortunes.
Unfortunately, none of them could do much about their present because their past always intruded. Depression finds an easy dwelling in the minds of such people. And then things go downhill.
Please remember that the past cannot be changed and the future is uncertain. All that we have is the present. And it is the present that can help us change the future.
So the point of it all is to make the most of every moment that is available to us by applying ourselves in a focused manner in the present time. And how does one achieve such concentration? By meditation. I have briefly written about meditation in my tenth column, but I did not elaborate as there is enough literature available.
Yet, the one aspect that escapes many of us is that meditation is not just a calming exercise to be practised in sessions. Meditation is essentially about being conscious of every action that we do in our every wakeful moment. In other words, meditation is about living the moment.
One of the finest sayings I have heard, and whose origin has not been established, goes, “Life is not about surviving the storm, but of dancing in the rain.” In living each moment, we should experience sadness in sad times and happiness in happy times.
Living is not about trying to escape any experience; it is to live through it. For example, we cannot escape childhood and rush to adulthood; it is important to be a child and live through fears, animosities and yes, daydreams. I can tell you from experience that child celebrities who have not had a normal childhood have always felt that they lost out on their innocent years.
So if you are writing, as I am at this moment, immerse yourself in writing. If you are dancing, lose yourself in the dance. And if it is raining, as it might since this is the monsoon season, go out and enjoy the rain. Live and enjoy each moment as if it was your last.
There is an adage in English that if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves. In a similar vein, I believe that if we look after the moments, our lifetime will look after itself.
The writer is a renowned film and theatre actor