Living in the present (instantly):

Everyone says to live in the moment.
Because that’s where you can be happy. (instantly)

But is it really true?

See, most of your thoughts are either about your past or about your future. You will have both good and bad memories of your past.

The bad ones obviously won’t make you feel happy. As that miserable memory keeps playing, your body will start manifesting that pain as if it’s happing right now.

The pleasant memories can surely induce some dopamine release in your body but as soon it ends you go back to your previous state. You will start comparing your past with your present and want to go back to your past. When you really want something which is not in your control then you know what it leads to.

Yeah…more suffering.

And coming to thoughts about your future - it’s more or less the same story.

But isn’t thinking about the future required to be successful in life?

Yes, it absolutely is.

I don’t mean to say you shouldn’t think about your past or future at all.

Absolutely not. In fact, you can’t even restrict your mind from it even if you wanted to.

Comparing your past can help you see your growth. And comparing to your future can set you up in the right direction.

But the problem arises when your daily routine is getting hampered due to overwhelming thoughts about your past or future.

You want to forget your past but it just keeps coming back. And the thoughts about your future make you anxious.

How can someone live in the present with all the chaos in their mind?

Let me show you.

There is a short-term shortcut for it. It will take just a few moments for you to be one with the present. But it will also last for only a few moments. Just follow along with me.

Ready?

Step 1: Close your eyes.

Step 2: Take a deep breath.

Step 3: Ask yourself this - “What am I thinking right now?”

…

…

Most probably you got blank. There were no thoughts for a few moments. Congratulations, you experienced presence or silence or the very existence.

What happened here is as soon as you started observing your thoughts, you snapped out of your strong identity with your thoughts which made you peaceful at that moment.

I came across this from my inspiration Sandeep Maheshwari. But this is definitely not a permanent solution to your problems. You have to dig into the root cause of your overwhelm and uproot it.

In the next letter, we will together dig further into the overwhelming thoughts and see if we can actually live in the present (most of the time) doing what we want to do instead of wasting time escaping overwhelm.

See you next week :)

— Ragav

PS: If you have any questions or want to have a chat then feel free to DM me. I’m always happy to help :)