Today is July 5 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you find yourself preparing for rainy days instead of enjoying today’s sunshine?”
But living in the present moment to enjoy today’s sunshine is hard work for humans. Dr. Eyal Winter, author of Feeling Smart: Why Our Emotions are More Rational Than We Think, suggests that “human psychology is evolutionary hard-wired to live in the past and the future. Other species have instincts and reflexes to help with their survival, but human survival relies very much on learning and planning. You can’t learn without living in the past, and you can’t plan without living in the future.”
Those who successfully navigate the chaos understand Eckart Tolle’s observation that “Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”
Tolle published his best-selling book The Power of Now in 1997 and reached the New York Times Best Seller lists in 2000. Tolle has said that he was depressed for much of his life until he underwent, at age 29, an "inner transformation." He then spent several years wandering "in a state of deep bliss" before becoming a spiritual teacher.
Tolle wrote that one should “realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”
American author and publisher William Feather noted “Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren’t enjoying today’s sunshine.”
How often do you find yourself preparing for rainy days instead of enjoying today’s sunshine?