Wake Up! You Paying Attention?
Daddy Wake Up!
On the occasional weekend when I let myself sleep in a little bit (not my usual 4:30am wake up), if my daughter gets up before me she will sit there and push me and scream “Daddy wake up! I want to wake up!” And although I do appreciate sleeping a little bit more on the weekends, there’s no bigger motivator for me to wake me up than my daughter wanting to start the day with me. So, sorry dreams and sleep, I’m going to listen to Luna and WAKE UP!
Don’t Hide In Your Dreams.
Sometimes that extra sleep is nice because, well who doesn’t like to sleep a bit, or maybe because I am having a great dream surfing some amazing waves somewhere in a faraway land… The reality of the situation is, if I actually wake up (I mean like wake up and pay attention to the right now) I’ll realize I’m living a dream life and sleeping isn’t a reality I can thoroughly enjoy like my real life is. Luna’s method of waking me up is a reminder to me that I need to stay awake all day while I’m living my life. It provokes me to think (if I catch myself daydreaming or worrying about something not happening immediately in front of me) I’m living in a dream or a “fake reality”, I need to pay attention to the RIGHT NOW.
There are so many instances where we forget that we need to pay attention to the life we’re living right in the immediate moment. Whether it’s because we’re mesmerized by our daydreams, overly involved in our plans for the future, or saying “it can wait” and setting aside our lives in hopes of what will one day be.
The reality is, if we’re not paying attention to the right now, our lives are going to pass us by and we won’t realize how much life we actually have to celebrate RIGHT NOW and how much we have to enjoy in these very moments. This isn’t some “live in the now” message. I’m saying, whatever you want to do, RIGHT NOW is all you have, there’s no yesterday and no tomorrow. Forget about what you “should have done” or what you are “going to do”. Now is all you have, so GET IT DONE!
Life Is What You Make It, If You’re Awake.
After finishing “Karma“ by Sadhguru, it provoked me to look at my old notes regarding reflection and meditation and overall “living in the now” mentality. A lot of people take this message as a sort of “focus on the moment” idea. Almost like, hey stop planning for the future, enjoy your current breath. I mean, yeah, that’s good advice I guess. That’s not what I’m saying here. I’m saying, don’t dwell on shit that happened before and don’t put off living right now because you tell yourself you’re going to do it next week.
The more I looked at my notes, the more it had me realizing how frequently I tend to put ideas off to a future date, for some future Nico to handle…”oh someday I can’t wait to have (a big house, a nice car, a more successful business)”. But the reality of the situation is that all I have is right now, so screw waiting, I’m going to get it and get it NOW.
That doesn’t mean I ignore how amazing my life actually is in this moment.
I have an amazing wife, an amazing daughter, another (amazing I’m sure) daughter on the way, so many personal accomplishments that I’ve achieved personally and professionally and so many more opportunities to achieve coming my way, but the reality is the more I focus on what I don’t have (my aspirations or goals yet to be achieved) the harder it is to realize the power I have right now. The more I focus on what I lack, the more it deflates me and hinders my excitement. (ie. I’ll never make enough money because housing prices just keep going up. OR What happens if I get sick and I can’t work and achieve my business goals?)
The truth is, I can’t do shit about either of those situations because they’re not happening right now, and they’re also out of my control. Sure, I can waste RIGHT NOW by building in contingency plans, but instead I should use the RIGHT NOW to focus on the things I can impact, like doing great work, getting a good workout in, doing the things that will keep my right now on track.
Let’s try to synthesize this with an analogy:
Let’s say you have concert tickets to see your favorite artist. The concert is a month away. You’re driving in your car to you office, and you find yourself daydreaming about the concert and how much fun you’re going to have. The whole drive to your office you’re focusing on a future event, something that may or may not come, when instead you could have grabbed your phone, turned on your playlist of all your favorite songs by that artist, and had an amazing concert by yourself in your car on the way to work.
Daydreaming about the future doesn’t add any energy to your life RIGHT NOW, it’s fun to think about and get caught up in, but it’s a dream. You’re not living, you’re sleeping. But jamming to your favorite songs in the car right now, instead of going into the office longing for some future date, you’re going to be fired up to have an amazing day because you’re living in the RIGHT NOW!
So, WAKE TF UP AND LIVE!
The more that I appreciate the fact that right now I can react to every moment, control the outcome of my current existence (to a degree), the more excited I am to continue living in it and making the most of it. Look outside and find value in the RIGHT NOW. Suns out? AMAZING! It’s raining? Jump in a puddle! Your life is RIGHT NOW, make it count! Don’t ignore your life to dream about some distant goal or to daydream into a nightmare trying to overcome some past hardship. What is right now, what is in front of your face at this very moment, THAT deserves of your 100% attention and INTENTION.
It’s so easy to push ourselves and our mindsets into some future success or some future event (or it could be worrying about some future event) but by focusing on the now we give ourselves active control of our situations. That control can be recognizing and appreciating all that we have, or it could be realizing that worrying is not worth it.
All you have is right now.
In Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, in a philosophical way, he discusses the strength that recognizing the only moment we have is right now gives us as individuals. If all you have is right now then nothing else matters. Every single worry that you have vanishes if you realize that there’s nothing you can do about it, right now. He discusses even impending death from illness. There is immense power in realizing that although you will die (maybe soon, maybe not) right now you are alive. Focus on that, that’s all you can control. By focusing on some future event, you are eliminating that power that you have to ACT and REACT to the NOW.
What I got from that message was that you can worry about the future and what could happen to you, or you could worry even about an illness or family members illness and what that means for the future, but if you realize that right now in this moment there’s nothing you can do about the future. Whatever you think you can do to control the future is fruitless, a waste of your energy. But, if a loved one is ill, you can do everything in this moment to make it easier for them, easier for you, and handle whatever is in front of you in this very moment. Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it gets you no where.
The Past Is Memory, The Future Imagination.
Are you hung up thinking you can’t wait for a chance to tell you family members how much you love them, or to call a friend and be there to support them (maybe later when you have a minute)? Stop. Forget about later or “the right time”. Enjoy that relationship RIGHT NOW. Call that loved one and tell them how important they are to you. Don’t worry about what you want to say in the future or what you hope you will get to say to someone you love at some later date that may seem like a more opportunistic moment than right now, all you have is right now, so do the thing! Enjoy your life! Be a happy person in this moment, it’s all yours and it’s all you have!
Something crazy to think about is this, whatever you think you’re going to do in the future and whatever that plan is, whether it’s a specific date or a convenient time, maybe the right temperature or climate, or shit maybe the stars will be aligned or a new moon, whatever it is that you think is going to come together at some later date and create the perfect moment to do something. At that time that you imagine is going to materialize, it will be RIGHT NOW for you in that moment, and failing to recognize that is why you will continue to push it off. Forget about the moon, RIGHT NOW IS ALL YOU HAVE.
There Is No Future!
There is no such thing as a future, it will never come! It is a continuous now, it is just an evolving and changing now. It’s the same way that there is no past, it is not an actual tangible thing, it is simply your memory and your creation. The future is an imagination, the past is a creation that you have formulated based on your experience of the “right now”. So all you have is now, and that’s all you need! Stop dwelling on your created past and stop creating a future that doesn’t exist. Live in, enjoy, and pay attention to RIGHT NOW! Tomorrow will never come.
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