The Present is Waiting for You

I may be running on my way based on predictions that might not be evolving with the way things really are and I am trying to materialize predictions rather than using them as tools. At least I can have the awareness that I am doing this. I can then consider that with this prediction as with any prediction there is the possibility that I made the wrong prediction and that I might be therefore procrastinating in error based on a wrong prediction. Also, the wrong prediction might also stop me in my tracks if is a negative prediction and as it turns out the situation would have been positive. Predictions involve variables that even if they can all be identified, would come through with a different force that I might expect, just like the force of a storm would differ.

For us to consider the now, it might take some adjustments. It's a leap year and I've had 365 bad days in a row. Things have gone bad for me financially, socially, and in the area of work. I'm anticipating more of the same and I'm not too enterprising towards anything that might involve better. On day 366, the last day of the year, I meet someone I really like on the last train ride, and earlier in the day, I meet someone who could be a partner in a breakthrough job. On top of that, there is a key stock tip in the paper that will net me lots of money as I can still open the paper after my bad first 365 days of this year. The key being no matter how bad things have gone for me, some things are still open and that includes the newspaper which will still open for me. However, can I meet with these opportunities now since I am so skeptical from my previous stretch of bad days? I am such a skeptic now that I can't believe my good luck and I will not take the new found luck as I find it. I never anticipated that my luck could change and because I didn't leave the possibilities open in my thinking, I am not ready for the possibilities as they present themselves in another form. Hopefully, I still have enough positive hopes left to grasp the opportunity which is present. but for some in a similar situation it might be that they can't believe their good luck or change of fortune and can't adjust now or can't permit themselves to adjust to the positive chances after having been in a negative situation or situations for such a long period of time. It might be difficult for me to adjust to what is happening right now if I have been in different patterns and on different pastures previously. The question is, can I adjust to the fine opportunities in the present right now.

How long will I go with something that just doesn't seem to be working? Is a baseball team that is losing more games than winning likely to have the same lineup the whole season? I might want to change or juggle my lineup card depending on what is working.

How much risk do I want to defer to the future, since at some point if not now rather than later I am going to need to deal with some risk. I might want to start to do some things now, in the present that will involve some degree of risk. Even if it isn't that much, maybe do it just to begin to get used to dealing with risk. Maybe taking some risk into the present instead of deferring much of it into the future when I might feel more like I would be up for it, but if in fact if I keep deferring into the future, I might find myself facing a big wall of risk then where the comparable risk is rather minuscule now. It might be better to surf some smaller waves now to get used to some of the risks involved rather than just wait for the perfect giant wave whenever that comes along in the future. That giant wave may carry the highest reward but it also carries the highest risk so why wait for it?

I can admire the sun from afar. But I can also admire the girl on the beach from a little closer of a view. In the same way, now is a bit closer than the future. Things might be great a year from now, ten years from now, and so on but right now does afford a closer view that I can also admire more closely. I can admire then next turn of the century from today's standpoint, but the view might not be as good as whatever I can view right now.

I can approach change is several ways. I can just throw what I am doing already in the garbage and call it a total loss. This could be a bad job situation for example. I may have made a great total effort towards this but it still needs to be hauled away to the garbage heap. Open yourself up to anything else that fills in that now blank page and has a real chance of being better.

I can keep in mind the concept of the last view. Indeed this might be my last view of this landscape, this person, this era, this musician, this concert, this play, this movie, this conversation especially when I don't make efforts to insure that is isn't my last view and or if there is nothing I can do to bring this view back as it is beyond any efforts I can bring forth to bring this back in some way.

I can speculate ad infinitum. Let the speculation end and the games begin.

I can substitute on my reasons all the way down the shoreline. I am working for example at a job I don't like for money. While that reason of wanting money is substitutable into a job you do like, or any number of different jobs or valid situations that might involve monetary remuneration. So I don't have to hold on to this particular job for the reason of making money when I can float this reason down the coast into other scenarios.

I can take or give out the initiative. If I take the initiative and call someone on the phone, this is giving permission for him or her to talk to me. I give out permission by my initiative. If someone calls me by their initiative they are giving the permission.

I could play with house money. In this case, even if the proposed change doesn't work out or fly I could retain my original base. I still have these good things going for me. I either win something or lose nothing because what I am doing is on the house.

I could say, I might not have everything but at the least, I have some things going for me. I shouldn't only look at the maximum I might have for a given situation. I also have this at the least. I can go forward in that yes, at the least I have this. On a bad day, I'm still good at this.

I don't want to activate on my interest because then the speculation is over. So I just speculate and deactivate. I can continue the endless speculating that I can throw the football 70 yards because I never tried to activate this and I can continue to muse on my talents, which may or may not be there. Then I armchair quarterback those who have activated on their interests, who at least go up there on that podium, and I continue the speculation that way. Activation isn't my game. If I go out there and only throw for 60 yards is that so bad? I'm still finding out something good, only it isn't as good but it is still good.

I feel like going to a seafood restaurant. I book a reservation for next year. Why don't I associate my feeling like seafood with this year or even right now? Note that, this is available right now.

I find I am delaying based on a piece I am waiting for. What exactly is the piece I am waiting for and can I fully identify it? I might think I am missing one piece to this puzzle but am so sure that I am missing this piece and that if I get this piece and that this is a piece I will move with then? What is I get the pieces on a chessboard and still don't move them?

I go into the bar or restaurant and I order a drink and a dinner. I say I will have the usual. The waiter asks, “ What would you like tonight" You say," you know, the usual". The waiter asks, “ When is the last time you have been here. You say 2 years ago. The waiter then says, “ How do you expect me to know what the usual is".

What happened I used to going to the place and order an fruit drink medley with the seafood special once a week. That became the usual then. But I haven't gone there in two years so it isn't the usual anymore to this waiter who has been there for 5 years but doesn't remember what my usual was two years ago. The usual ain't the usual anymore.

I talk to a friend. He says he usually runs. I say when is the last time you ran on a regular or even say a weekly basis. He says well I was doing this in 1997. I say it's now 2002, how is it that you say you usually run or usually go to the gym and run on the treadmill.

I say I usually go on vacation to Mexico. When is the last time you went Mexico they ask. Well, it was 1991.

But maybe we can pick up where we left off. Long intervals doesn't mean the end. Even if it was a long time ago since. I had a great day at the World's Fair in 1965 and I had many rough days since or in between then and now. But why not envision getting back to that day in spirit, picking up in some fashion on where you left off. Celine Dion, had a hit song, It's All Coming Back to Me Now. Whatever or whenever you had that distant moment, envision picking up where you left off then right about now.

This is one way we fool ourselves as to what is happening now and what we are doing now. Yes, I used to go to the gym, but how does that cover the now if I haven't gone in months or years? I am procrastinating in reverse, as some workouts years ago don't cover for me now. What is a reasonable elapsed interval going to be before I say I'm just not involved with this anymore? I say I usually go to the new movies that come out yet I haven't gone to a movie in three years. What does that statement have to do with the now. I don't have to go to the movies when they come out now, but I need to erase the statement that I usually go to the new movies as they come out and modify that statement to say I used to go to the movies as they came out in the theatre but I now I don't.

Opportunity isn't always obtained by finding a conflict and solving it. We might have trained ourselves to find things in the present that deal with conflicts that can be strived with and solved. This can be errant in that today's opportunities may present themselves as conflict free. It is really just a matter of recognizing the opportunity or chance and taking it. There is no presenting conflict in some cases. Getting into the now does involve taking a look at opportunities that may involve conflict, but just as important is looking at opportunities that do not.

Usually, we try to get ourselves going with an outline of sorts, often this outline is informal and of the sketch variety but we become very determined about it nevertheless. Our little outline doesn't know about all the competing variables out there in the big wide world. A good idea is to be able to veer from an outline, however small or large and it isn't like you can't often go back to the original outline anyway. You can start another outline as well, start to work within that and also veer back as well.

We might have a gigantic picture of success that becomes like a looming sky over us. This picture of success takes precedence over everything else that might be coming across, and letting anything loom that large over us does tend to halt or hinder making smaller connections in the now that can count for us in positive ways in the present.

One way to deal with procrastination in reverse is to consider what you want to keep in your schedule and or your daily, weekly, or monthly programs and plans. If something like running or swimming works for you at the level of athletic pursuits, than why not keep it going into the present? It doesn't have to be at an exact same level, but if it works why not keep it going amidst other real changes and adjustments?

Within these considerations, what would we want the now to include on a usual basis, such as daily or weekly workouts in the gym, reading some current articles in the paper on a daily or weekly basis, or something that I want to have now applications to my approach to daily living. Just don't say your working out now if you had been working out 5 years ago or had been doing this years ago and you bring that forward into the now in your presentations but in fact it is a false pretense you are giving either yourself or someone else. Modify your stance a bit. I need to say for example that I am going to the gym at intervals of once a week to say I'm going to the gym. Keep your standards in the framework of reasonable and knowable intervals.

Our interests are dispersed into a landscape of some distant unseen future, probably to be realized only as a memory of something else that I never did.

Sometimes the best thing to do now is just stay with the situation in general terms. For example, you want to keep in shape. You hurt your ankle skiing or running but generally you want to keep fit so you can substitute say swimming in a pool. You aren't going to get away from the idea that some sort of exercise is needed to stay fit. Generally, you stay with the idea even though some of the specifics will maybe shift.

Generally, you are interested in the opposite sex. You might have some specific problems in maybe a specific situation but the best bet now is to stay with the general approach and let some of the specifics work out. The general outline is the same but you might change some of the specifics. I permit myself to follow the general outline and I permit myself to allow the specifics to remain unsettled. So you don't have to delay your general outline due to specifics which are changing and can be changeable and settled upon later within shifting dynamics.

Generally, I want to just focus on reading and generally, I want to avoid math. However, that doesn't mean in every instance I will be reading and that in some instances I might still be dealing with math.

The concept of something being settled also includes the idea of now. You have a legal case you consider it settled based on something that becomes present. In general something that brings a settlement to an issue has some now connotations. If I am going to talk of a settlement, I should have felt that it is settled right now.

I might feel that I find myself in a shortfall. I can ponder if I have really been shortchanged in this situation. There are almost an infinite number of ways that people can feel shortchanged. Sometimes these feelings of being shortchanged go beyond the actual situation. For example, the student gets back a bad mark on a test they studied hard for and expected to do well on. They might not only feel shortchanged on this but on everything else in their personal sphere. The event takes on global implications and proportions where it could have been left as is in proper proportion to the specific incident. He has extended it horizontal, vertical, and into the future. Maybe they got a bum deal on the test but that doesn't mean they are shortchanged on everything else they have going for them in any number of areas now and that feeling permeates too much and causes them to let go on the good.

But what happens is that often we feel we are shortchanged and it might be that we aren't bringing something we enjoyed from the past into the now or that we are procrastinating on something we think we could do now. I withdraw permission for this because I am determined not to get shortchanged again. And while I really have only some hopes of getting to this as some dot on some place on that future map. I have erased this dot beforehand. Imagine erasing the pages of a book that we are involved with and not getting to the end of the story. This is what we do with some of our ready and waiting options.

It might be that I am in a protracted or extended focus on something that is crowding out some real interests and I find as time is going on I am starting to feel shortchanged on these other interests because they aren't appearing in the present anymore or anytime soon. My extended concentration on this has fully excluded that which I was in fact rather interested in. Moral, don't define your interests so narrowly. Am I shortchanging the present for future I can't see yet?

Whether I do anything about it or not I can at least acknowledge to myself that I do feel shortchanged in this area and I can look into the motion of the specifics and see if they really do apply over the present feelings I'm having. The model is disappointed that she didn't get the cover of the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated. In analyzing the specifics, is she really that shortchanged. That she was in the select group of models that was considered for the cover says a lot right there in her favor as a model. Should she view herself as all that shortchanged and maybe not viewing the situation that way can help her come back right now with another big time modeling assignment, maybe she will get to brace the cover another Sports Magazine. She can more easily recover from her disappointments sooner if she doesn't see herself as fully shortchanged. She can say at the least I have a middle page as a model and I can try again for the cover another time. She feels she can anticipate good chances soon.

The girl feels bad she didn't win the Miss America Pageant, but she is still Miss Washington, is she really that shortchanged? At the least, she is Miss Washington.

Probably the best metaphor for doing something now is the day itself. How many times have you and I missed out on a great day because we got going too late? The great weather, the events of the day didn't wait for us. There was a great game we could have played but we didn't show up on time, there were excellent waves at the beach but we got there too late, all within the day itself. You could have even caught the sunrise if you properly planned for it. You can stay out till 4 in the morning on a Friday night but you might miss the best part of the daylight on a Saturday. The sunny day doesn't wait for you to show up.

Procrastination might involve the search for finality at the beginning. I want to finalize everything right at the outset of what I am doing. I want the final answer, the outcome, and the final product right at the beginning. It would be like someone setting out to write a novel and expecting the final product to be written in one sitting. With the expectation of finality, I might delay because I am searching for an immediate path to finality, which is going to possibly going to take me longer to find than on other feasible paths.

Sometimes people are embarrassed about an awkward situation they are going through and hide themselves from their friends until they feel better about things. Why hide in the negativity if that isn't where you want to be anyway? But reverse it, think of a friend you really enjoy seeing that is seemingly happy and doing well. Would you still want to see that friend if their luck was down. Sure you would in most cases. So why do you feel so awkward yourself about going about with less than what other people seem to have and feel you can't present yourself. You can visit your friends now regardless of how you feel about your current situation or positions or potentialities.

Now also has to do with being there. Say I walk around the stadium as the big game is being held. I'm close to the action, but I'm not there. As I'm circling around the stadium, I think I wish I were there now. So I'm not there. The big game is going on right now and I'm not there, I am putting myself out to pasture, another self imposed exile.

What is the difference between doing something now or putting it off until later. If there isn't going to be a real difference that is better or more advantageous later, why not just ahead now. But maybe there is going to be a real difference if we wait until later. But how do we find out that differential is or what the differential warranting the delay will be? Even if there is going to be a difference, is it big enough to delay for? I take permission away until the differential is obtained. That I am anticipating a differential in the first place does not mean I will get this differential. I can anticipate more advantages down the road but that doesn't mean I will get more advantages down the road or that those advantages will be waiting for me on the next corner.

At least realize that we are banking on a differential by delaying and try to determine what that differential could be as we go along and things come more into view. I might be withholding permission based on my demands for a differential later.

Often I might say I am in the process of deciding, I am in the process of learning or I am in the process of moving. I might tend to put things on delay because of this process. But I don't want to ape against my own interests and assets because of this process, whatever the process is. I'll always find myself in some sort of process or course of action and just because I am in this process doesn't mean all needs to be delayed within the process. I am in the process of going down the coast, but I don't let that process stop me from enjoying this coastline and taking in some of the benefits presently available.

I might be waiting to resolve something but am I going to get a full resolution or on this or more widely I may never get a full resolution on every issue I'm dealing with. I might have to move forward leaving things to some extent unresolved. A partial or some percentage resolution is something I can begin to be happy about and begin to work with. A situation that is 50 percent resolved is better than some situation that is zero percent resolved.

I might also think about what percentage of information does I need to go forward a bit. If I am desirous of 100 percent of the information, I might delay for that. If I need only 50 percent to proceed, then I can proceed at points where I feel I have 50 percent or more information therefore I now have more points where I can continue my procession. Or maybe I just need 10 percent information to go on with this. Determine what is that workable percentage for you.

I might often being awaiting for notification. By doing this I might not be taking the initiative on the now. Lot's can happen now but I need to initiate for it to happen. I might be awaiting notification that I can involve myself in this now, I can go forward into this now from some outside source. This notification also can go along with permission. And this can be in the seeming negative situations as well. If you are notified that you are fired from your job, with that you are permitted to leave. Maybe you actually wanted to get fired so it would give you permission to move on. This is because often we get our notification from an outside source and we come to expect more from these outside sources that we should. I might have to do some of my own research. I might have to apply some of my own initiative. I might have to seek the source myself rather than wait for the source to come into my presence. I might have to be the source for myself in some instances. Again this comes partly from the structured environments we grow up in say in school when we are notified that the class is over and then I can go on to the next class or go home. We get used to waiting for the notification. I begin to anticipate that some event, person, or circumstance will wake me up and notify me as to what I should be doing. I anticipate its arrival. But in many areas we are on own and it's it mostly up to us if we want to make a change now like moving to another country or state or changing careers. I have to make the assertion because nobody is going to alert me to this change or new doorway into the now. No one is going to knock on our door and notify us that we are going or need to make these changes in 99 percent of the cases. People have been told to move to a different climate for health considerations but in most cases, there is no one telling us what environment to live in. If I am going to make moves now, I often have to consider these moves without anyone or anything notifying me.

Feedback or lack of feedback also relates to this as well. For example, if I was a star athlete in high school, I was used to that feedback and got used to the cheers. The feedback acts as a validation and seems to give further permission to go on. The feedback can also work as permission in the reverse. My best efforts are met with continued resistance than maybe this feedback gives me permission to move on to something else right about now. The forces working against me can be usable feedback too. I am anticipating that the feedback will always be there for me. Now, if I want to go out and run around the track, there is nobody in the stadium to cheer me on and give me that feedback. The feedback turned out not to be ongoing and I wonder where it went. To get into it now, I need to proceed without the feedback I had been getting in former times. I may need to run my next 4-minute mile not to the appreciation of the crowd but on an empty and deserted track. And then in the school environment, we get a lot of feedback as to how we are doing. But as time goes on, there are so many ways that we are on our own and we aren't going to get any feedback at all or little feedback is available. Since feedback was provided for and built into our routines, we thought it would continually be provided for. But our coaches or mentors may have left us. We lack those prior provisions. In many areas of our adult lives, we have to proceed first in order to find any feedback. We delay for feedback without realizing that feedback is never going to come unless we first move in some fashion into the situation and test the waters a bit and the feedback is only provided within the situation itself while it forms. The seas might swallow us up but I don't know that because I am not traversing the waters. While I am patiently waiting for the feedback to come my way, now is passing me by again because the feedback didn't show up.

Within this feedback, we are also looking for some verification. This verification would seem to give me further permission to go ahead now. That wanted verification isn't just going to knock on our door. At some point, the proof needs to be sought out in many instances. I seem to have sensibilities in this direction or that direction, but to verify these sensibilities, I have to look further and not just wait. I think I would like to travel, but I can best verify that sensibility that by taking some trips. But our inner sensibilities might even be more important than outwards signs in telling us where we might go.

But why can't I go further on this or that if I really want to, I lost the sight of what I already had. The seas swell with possibilities this very day. I may never know if I am over my head unless I get into those waters. But maybe I just don't want to try the full force of this. In some cases, I really have to experience the full force of this or I'm just not getting there. Holding off for a lesser version might not be an obtainable option with this.

Then I cease to look at real indicators that relate to me now, I put the long-term goal, and it's longer horizons first. But even if I get to the top of the mountain and reach my highest goals, when I get there I can't have today back.

I have the problem now I'm in the situation now. The wagons are circling me now. There are pointers that deal with what is happening now. I look at the rain clouds and I see some lightning I can see indicators that it might rain just about now, not ten years from now. In the same way, I have personal indicators that relate to doing things currently. This could even be an emotion. If I am bored, that relates to something right now that pertains to boredom. Why do we seem them to have invisible bars on the present? Actually I am jailed from the present and I am wearing the stripes of a prisoner to future hopes. I'm servile to tomorrows seemingly impossible dreams and yesterdays disappointments.

Go to a place where things used to be. One place for me is Flushing Meadow Park in Queens New York where they had two big World Fairs, which are long over now. For others in could be a museum. This can have a sobering and not so soothing effect on showing how we are now in a new era, and if we are going to capture this new era, soon to be gone, just like the last one, it has to be now. For those people it was then, but their time for fun under the sun in that particular way has past and we can see the evidence of that right in front of us.

In thinking about what we might want, we tend to put this on delay. One exercise might be to put what you might want ten years into the future. Would you want this then? It is possible there is no way your going to want this now and then there is also no way you are going to want this ten years from now. I don't want this scenario this year, next year, or ten years from now. But some other scenes are not so definite. I might want this ten years from now or 5 years from now? If that is the case, can I began to form an argument for even right now? If I would definitely want this ten years from now, then I can even put more credence on looking at some of the arguments that would begin to support a look at this right now. Why would you permit this five or ten years from now or sometime else in the future, yet it seems to be so forbidden in the present.

An example is I think I would want a boat in ten years or in even 5 years? Why not today? Then in 5 years or ten years I might not even want the boat.

Maybe you can just put a scene into the present. Maybe I couldn't go all the way with this into the present, but I could bring in a scene that might take place say months from now rather than years later. I can imagine this scene only weeks away, still a safe distance but I'm getting my thinking closer to the present from the more faraway future. It would be like someone who can't find the wherewithal to write their novel, just write a scene and then you have one scene for the present, rather than nothing, even though you don't have the novel you wanted yet.

Looking for the best often means just take a rest. All or nothing meant nothing. Flying high often means just not flying at all. My imagining's fly higher than the day, from the distant heights, and never actually find a landing point in the present.

So the first reason we don't do anything now, or miss so much now is just a lack of vision for our lives. We don't connect the dots and find the underlying meanings or we see the dots and erase them before they get a chance to connect to where we might have to face the music of the real. So we pull the plug on one little thing that insures we don't get the big thing we really will find we wanted when we look back at the past from yet again a more distant point in the future.

You never know how things are connected or will connect. Delays might mean that you will miss your connection. A personal example for myself is when I went on a flight from New York to Kansas City. The plane from La Guardia was delayed, and it arrived at the transfer point of Dallas late. As I got off for the transfer, they said run as fast as you can and you might make the connection, it's right down the hall. I made the connection with only a minute to spare. As soon as I got to my seat I could feel the plane already in motion towards the takeoff. They weren't going to wait for maybe the lone transfer from a New York flight. You might have individual goals that that the masses just aren't going to wait for you on, because the crowd is busy with their thing.

The questions is what worlds do you and I want to connect with and do we want to connect with these worlds sooner rather than later?

Then you never really know now what you missed because you didn't see it. You don't get to see what would have been on that road not taken, even if it would have been great.

The connection you might have missed was some positive thought leading to a positive action. The negative tended to drain those positive thoughts away and those thoughts were very important because they helped you in your searches. But you don't always know what the connection is going to be and when and that is another reason to keep an open eye on the present for the positive connections. You might have a chance to connect now on your interests even if you know you will get the chance later. Then you might miss a meeting and get so busy beating yourself up that you don't permit yourself another chance to channel your interests.

But if you are going to worry why not also worry about the good connection you are missing and not only the bad connection you might make.

An example is the area of the blind date. People might be worry about a bad date and not go on this date, but why not also worry about missing what might be a good connection with another person and having a good time and even reaching points that seemed beyond what was possible.

One thing might lead to another and we might never know the ways we miss a connection on something by delaying into the future.

There can be now aspects to our interests and characteristics. I may not get to Hawaii now, but I like the scenery in Hawaii right now. You already know you like some thing whether you can get to it or not, but liking is a bankable commodity that could be spent without having to replenish the bank. What are you involved with that has now aspects to it? I can further accentuate the now aspects of my interests by actually making them real. I already have the now aspects in terms of my unbounded potential, I can begin to realize it at some point into the present.

One of the solutions is to just get a foretaste that is enough, go far enough in what we are doing just to see the possibilities. And think about how far I need to see. If I start any endeavor then what am I beginning to see. Am I seeing something that I ultimately would want on my landscape or not, and how long am a willing to stay the course until I come to some conclusion as to what I am seeing and what I am not seeing. For example, if someone is seeking a date, it might be better to spend a full day with this person, if there is any interest at all. If you are going to fade, fade with the fading sunlight of today. Let yourself see. Facing today's sun. Give yourself a chance to see. When Columbus was sailing to America, he had lookouts for land. What and who are our lookouts? We are so immersed in our daily meanderings and wanderings, that we rely on others as our lookouts, the media, the newspapers, TV, watch the world for us and give the news. But how about when we get to the very personal level, the sometimes nitty gritty things that really make a difference to us personally? Who is our lookout, watching over our personal front? Often we don't have that personal coach we need. Who is going to look out for land for us, if we are so busy at some other helm that we don't even bother to look up. Most of us don't have the assistance along those lines, and we are left to fend for ourselves, and this contributes to additional shortfalls in our present sightings. We can give our imagination some permission to explore the future, and we can give ourselves a break and incorporate all the possible aids towards a more advanced vision of our personal future. Maybe we need some time to collect and gather our thoughts as to what is possible now. To collect something you have to give yourself a chance to do this, even collecting seashells on the shore, requires that you give yourself this chance.

While I tend to push things forward on the time line, can I fathom the unfathomable? So much is possible.

But why not now? Give yourself credit if you can get there now, do something now. Raise your grade. Extra credit is available for doing it now. I can ask why, but also why not?

I say I don't care what happens now. If you don't care about what happens now, then who is going to care about what happens now? The people in those future days might look back and write a painstakingly researched biography on what one of us did today. Ironically, they might be looking more deeply into what was once our present than we did at that time and place. Ken Star wrote the Star Report, and investigative biography really on the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In the Star Report, they detail that Monica was concerned about the relationship's future and direction. She was thinking ahead on where this relationship was going to lead. Monica wasn't wholly present to her now that was wholly investigated later in the future by someone else. But in most cases, there isn't going to be someone looking back and writing a biography, giving what is now the present a proper inspection. No crimes are committed and then nobody is going to look back at today as a crime scene to be reviewed. Nobody is going to care in the future, what you and I do now unless it directly affects them, which in 99 plus percent of the cases, it will not. But of course what I do today can have a direct hit on the future either for myself or someone else, but mostly what happens today will be obscured by the new and present view of tomorrow. Therefore, the only point of someone caring about the now in the vast majority is if you care about it. Those future individuals mostly will not care. There will be only so many biographers in the future.

Then people think they have limited resources so they need to spread these resources into the future. But in some respects you might have not such limited resources but unlimited and abundant resources and using some of these resources now is not going to deplete them for use in some endeavor in the future. I can have a lot of this now and a lot of this in the future. I have abilities that will cross into the future regardless.

There could be adding on aspects. I could have lots of this now, and just add on lots more to it in the future. I can have this and add into it with that later.

I can go on one ride now at the amusement park and I can have another one later on. I can have fun now and add to this later.

Then I might be holding something that has a now aspect to it that I would lose later. I can lose my inspiration later, my energy later, my impetus later, my good feeling later. I have a ticket to the World Series game tonight if I don't use this ticket, tonight it doesn't have any use for another time. I say I have a ticket to the World's Fair for 1965 and now it's 2002. I could sell the ticket as memorabilia but as far as getting me into any fair it's too late. You might be holding other things that you could use or lose and then find can only serve you as memorabilia as something else you missed. I buy a peach I can't let it sit for a year, there isn't even memorabilia with that.

For all users, if you buy a car, and they tell you it will be drivable in 2 years, you aren't going to be happy. If we are going need to or want to use something, very often we are going to want to use it now. Yet, you might have a lot going for you that you just lost track of in the morass and the crowded circumstances and swarming situations of daily living, and you just don't end up using what you have. It might even be forever dormant, like a volcano that doesn't get to explode. But a smoldering volcano is also a problem. If it bothers you that much that you are delaying on this, then it might be in your interest to attempt some solutions now or in the near future as the problem is lingering but you still don't attend to possible solutions.

Maybe we are already doing or involved with a lighter version of what we could be doing now in full bloom. I can think about what my version of this is going to be. Lip service to the issues might not get us there. A cursory glance is just that. The later version might get me something else.

But it might be true that there is not going to be a lighter version of what I want. It has to be full-blown, fully present or it is just not going to be. It might be that I just want to crawl down the city street and I have to walk now because that is the lay of the land. There is no real lighter version. There are no exemptions. Maybe you get an exemption on some things for being good, for getting a series of A's and then you are exempt from the final exam. Or you have qualities such as intelligence that you think gives you an exemption from this or that. I am granting myself that I'm intelligent but I am still this way as far as that is concerned and my A in school doesn't exempt me from this logic. However, we might be waiting for an exemption to come our way when there is no way I'm getting this exemption, there is not going to be an exemption no matter what I do and I can either live with this the way I'm choosing to now or find a better way soon. I am not exempt, I have to go through this in some way or another, or this isn't going to be in the now. I have to find some way through, either the best way through, another way through, a perfect way through, an imperfect way through, a different way through, a relaxed way through and easy way through but somehow I have to find my through. By waiting for an exemption, I am foregoing the now for good. A simple example is that I'll wait for the exemption for paying for the movies in all the movie theatres I could go to. I might not get to the movies for a long time with this wait unless I know the owners of the theaters or I am some sort of luminary who gets free tickets.

Another way to keep us from moving into the present is by assigning too heavy a weight to something. If my whole future is going to depend on this date, this job interview, this test, I might indeed find myself less than present to the situation because my focus is on the far-reaching implications of what I am doing now. It might be advantageous to play the situation down a bit to where it seems to be in a less volatile place. I could say there could always be another test, another job interview, and another date and try to do the best I can without deriving my motivations from the wholesale importance the situation. I can search for other motivations that have a lighter play into the situation, where I don't feel I have every chip I have on the table. I can give pursuit to the present in more than one way and realistically every little thing isn't coming across full force.

There can be several motivations in play and I can look at some of my lighter motivations for what I am doing. I don't have to surf now to become the world champion now, I can just enjoy the surfing maybe for the present company or present weather conditions or the present festivities.

Heavy motivations might be intimidating. I am riding up the hill on my bike for the Tour de France. Every second counts. If I keep thinking about that every second, this heavy motivation might end up hammering too forcibly against my better performance. So, define your motivations and lighten up on them specifically. Similarly, if I say one wrong thing on a date then I am out then that will cause more hesitation in what I might be willing to say.

The blockage of our way does not mean there is not a way.

So one of the first things to look at is what indeed are the lighter versions of what we are already doing. You might lighten up into the lighter versions. The irony is, that which we are avoiding and procrastinating on, we are already involved with in some fashion anyway, with some other maybe lighter reduced version or undercurrent of it. There are real hints that are actually in operation now. Probably of course, in lightened form, this can still be a forum for today. As it gives us some sort of forum, maybe not a high seat in the Roman Senate, but something, maybe a seat at the chariot races and its still a nice day for that. To further stamp it with more of a now aspect, we can come up to a ramped up version, a more ornate and desired form of what we want in the reachable end. It is really a conversion into a version which increased the now behavior, the now aspects. What version can I obtain that gets me more fully into the now. We can lightly orchestrate into the present, what we had some fading hopes for in our future.

We are on the outskirts of the issue, tap dancing around it, circling but never actually landing. When does now begin. We can take incremental steps, some bigger steps. But, it might be the smaller steps or smallest step I could take that get me into the now. Make a small attempt that could ironically net you big results. I am already by the waters of the now one small step and I'll be in for a swim. Sometimes now is that close, that one move will get us there, a little dive and we are in the water.

Then I can say I have some of this and I can work with this now. I may not be Albert Einstein but I have driven big trucks and I did have a lot of A's in college, I must have some intelligence. You can always look at anything and think, do I have some of this, right about now? Maybe I can use my portion, which includes at least some, right about now?

We can convert our ramped down version, scaling up if we can, opening the door wider to the present, rather than divorcing ourselves from it. If we can't make up the mountain, we can just scale down again to base camp, but we don't have to totally give up on the now. It might be that the full throttle approach can be possible as well, but if not some throttle will help keep you in the now, you might be flying at low altitude but you are still flying.

Then at the same time, maybe we need to continue, with at least an easier and lighter version that is towards my goal, heading in that direction. A not so great pair of shoes is better than being barefoot. I really want to run a marathon, but I'm training tonight by running a slow 5 miles. No quite a marathon, but having some lighter version, more sublime maybe, less ennobled, not quite as exotic, or alien, to what you know, as going into the more ultimate experience of the now. I can bring a more experiential approach to living, that is more hands on than off. Rather than skipping the present, we can walk into a lighter streams and downstream versions of the now, giving some needed continuance on those cross ways, and keeping some still flowing waters that are towards my now less lofty goals. At least trying and putting one foot down on the land of today before I step into the future. I get elevate easier from something rather than nothing. A lessened, lighter version but an actual version nonetheless. We will not have to make a more quantum leap into the present, if we have a least begun the journey in part into that most mysterious space of the now. I can launch better as I have an initial feel or some initiation into the present.

Once in a while, maybe now, we can also ask ourselves, what am I getting out of this? You might be admired for your selfless dedication and application to something that you yourself are getting just about nothing out of and your trying to soak yourself from a dry well. Not that we want to be selfish, but there is a self to consider.

If you first try to please yourself, at least you know someone will be pleased.

Breaking the cycle of procrastination is not easy for us, so maybe we can't take that scary leap into the now, by just trying to operate now with more one sided scaled down versions of what we could be now. I can revise better off some version than no version. I put my foot in the water and I can revise later into a full dive, or something in between. Maybe scaling up a bit if it is ridiculously far away from our more ultimate version, but at least start the story by accepting the lighter and maybe watered down approach. At the same time seeing the ways in which I could bring myself more to the version I'm already in, into a more advanced version, the more rock solid, finding more of the inherent potential, while also posturing on any chance that could arise for the fuller more complete version, and oftentimes a more expanded and escalated version. This version might also leave out fewer parts, thereby lending itself more fully to the now. But even the more lighter and maybe more limited version touches on the now, reaches into the present and it is helpful to highlight the parts of that lighter version and it's now aspects, to go further in touching and tuning in with our ability to more fully incorporate the now. At least in part, I have been in the now. I've gotten my feet wet to the present. I took a peak into the window of the present.

So what I am already doing now can be indicative, containing some of the hints, or showing some the ways I can begin to see that I can bring much more into the now, incorporating more parts of my previously fragmented world into the present, maybe having richer experiences now.

But even a fragment of what I want might be worth it. For example, someone owed me money and they offered me partial payment. I said wait until you have the full amount. I never got anything back. Sometimes it might pay to take the fragment now.

For example, I want to read this complicated and richly written novel. Right now, I can read some complicated articles in the newspaper. In terms of topography and coverage there are less pages in the newspaper article although topography is not always telling of experience. I can then cross over, and convert that more limited experience of the now in terms of pages, reading articles, and begin the trek into the great novel. Not a transformation or a metamorphosis necessarily, but a further extension or enlargement of my readings. Can I convert any lighter experience in the now into a more diversified and expanded now, expanding across the still open fields of what possible. A speaker commented on his trip by train over the landscape in Eastern Europe. From what he saw from the train he commented that he had never seen so much snow that had never been walked on and would probably never be walked on. There were zero footprints in the snow. Nobody ever took that first step. Forget about walking on the moon for the moment, try the earthly possibility again as much of which is available has never been traversed.

How do we take those first steps into the expansion? An example could be someone who has an interest in travel. Maybe right now they just like to watch the travel channel or they have read some books on travel but they have never actually taken a trip. Or maybe they have just taken a few trips that they really enjoyed and they find that this is pointing to an interest in travel that can be expanded upon. They see that this is something they would like more of and that it is something they might want to expand upon going forward. They might test the new waters lightly by taking a shorter trip and gradually increase the distance or duration of their trips, instead of being frigid towards their own interests, they can warm up gradually. The enjoyment is there with the somewhat lesser and lighter version and therefore maybe it is worth looking for a big trip or some bigger trips. Maybe they are finding traveling so exciting that they might want to weave it into a career, reforming this interest into an even a greater expansion. The expansion can be at many different levels and can traverse and go back and forth between different levels of expansion. As any expansion becomes present, it brings us more into the now of what we wanted to expand upon. I am traveling, I'm presently acting within the expansion of my interest in traveling. If I can see that the expansion is more and more worthwhile, I might want more and more of this and I will be less likely to delay this interest far into the unseen future.

In think about what you really wanted, how much face time have you ever really had with it. For example, look at some of the pro basketball players who are on the end of the bench. They might play 2 minutes every other game, adding up to about 3 games worth of minutes the whole season while some other players play most of the game the whole season. They might do this for say three years so that amounts to about 10 games worth of time in three years. Maybe someone meets their dream girl, only talks to her face to face that one time, and never sees her again. Contrast this to another person who has this dream girl as a regular companion, increasing his face time with this person. The face time is a lot different and much more substantial. Like that snowfields that are empty of any footsteps, open territory that was never touched, often in what we wanted we never really had much face time with the territory. We or anyone else might never see much of the coastline.

And then if you can't make it to the larger conversion, let the lighter version of the experience keep you present, keep you in some ways focused on the now, scoping present opportunities. Yes, I want the scoop, but not always the one in the far future. Small stops can help bring me into the present. Small attempts can be made against even your biggest goals. People have all sorts of issues that they don't even stop to take heed off. If there were an article in the paper about their problems, it would be the first time they would actually find about them. They wouldn't be aware of their own situation unless it was in today's headlines

Look at the newspapers, you don't want yesterday's news today at times but can you get tomorrows news in today's paper? Try to work on today's scoop for now and when you get tomorrows headlines,take a look at that then.

Indeed you may never be at the arrival point of the Olympic Champion, but you can bring your sport into the now for yourself, by accepting easier versions of the Olympic you if you have too, at least joining at the level of participation in your talents. I can ponder, where can I find an arrival point with this? If I can't be an Olympic champion, where and when else can I arrive with this? If you lessen your goals and expectations for a particular endeavor, you may give yourself other breakthrough points in an easier version of the now. Maybe write a shorter stories now, instead of that great novel you have been procrastinating on and never even started. Bring that action verb of write into the present time. Maybe some grand version will come later, maybe not, but at least some of the now has been addressed, you have given some salute to the passing sun of this day.

Those opportunities, these chances, may be here now, docked on the shores of this very present day. We can be more poised to finally recognize and tap into the still running wells of opportunity if we accept more modified views and other versions, of how an opportunity is formed and how it can be presently with us, in its various presentations. Yes, because an opportunity often comes sooner rather than later, in this presenting form rather than that version, doesn't mean it isn't going to be a good opportunity. The opportunity might even be presenting itself now but in a tightly disguised form and in unfamiliar fashion. Good is good whether it is now or later. If it's going to be so fantastic later, it will be fantastic now. Is opportunity itself always better later, a can of soup is a can of soup whether you have it today or next year, an opportunity is an opportunity either gained or lost. In addition, just because you don't take the opportunity, doesn't mean it wasn't one. I find it might have found that I lost an opportunity. Look for opportunities even on the garbage dump, in the mess there can be those diamonds.

Another approach to help consider the now is to make believe this is your last chance. It probably is anyway. Of course, this can backfire and just make you feel apprehensive, so don't see this as a heavy handed ultimatum that you have handed yourself, but as another viewpoint that might help you see from a vantage point that this particular chance might not be standing there in those distant tomorrows and might be fairly brief. The Roman Coliseum is still standing but not in its original form. Just for fun, make believe that this is your last dance ever. It could be. If I want to play high school football, I have a better chance of doing this if I try out for the high school team while I'm in high school. When I'm going to college I can still play football, but not high school football.

You could make believe you are at the end of a long journey, editing back from the last sighting, reviewing the final scenes. The tents are folding there is nothing more left to buy at the fair. Contemplate the endpoint of your endeavor, the furthest and most far reaches into the future and look back into the present, and then envision yourself at different points in the timeline. What would you want as the last thing standing?

You have your deck of cards, how have you played them? Have you even showed your Aces, your better cards? (Vanessa Williams has a song I Save the Best for last but what if last never came for you.) I mean, are you going to bring them out when. Or maybe you have kept just a couple of the cards back and hidden, why not use them and bring them into the game now. You might end up hiding these cards until long after the game is over. I have the Ace for a game that is now long over so what good is it doing me. I have what amounts to a prepaid trip to nowhere. They take on greater value if you get in the game, which at some point has to be now. Everything isn't broken, you might have 9 of the 10 cards in your wonderful deck and you don't want anything to do with the game because of that one missing card, missing the world for a chipped tooth, forgetting all of what has not been chipped of the old block, and what you still have.

I could play one card it doesn't always have to be my best card. I can play the card on intrigue, of a new idea, a better adventure, and foresight and insight.

The rush itself is a slight on the now. The rush to retirement, the rush to success, the rush to something big all brings us away from the present sightings. There is so much singularity in the way we define and subsequently approach things. If you drive down the road 200 miles an hour, how much scenery are you taking in? Soak in some sun now. Don't rush past your best attributes and your finest appreciations. And then you might have a hazy future anyway and the best sun you are ever going to get on this is right now. Even if we get to those other points it can only be at some point which would be in the now. Small things can happen now, it doesn't have to always be big.

So many days have already gone by where we walked away with the now, saying goodbye to the present, waving and washing away opportunities galore, closing our eyes to the fields of plenty, wishing tomorrow would greet me before this day had ended or even begun. i can picture a plane trying to land on a sunny day with everything we wanted, and you and I just put out a flag and wave it on the runway saying, keep going or go away as we turn to the side. Can I go back to sleep now? As we walked away from the present, globalizing our fears to make them the big wide world, darkening our lens that would have let us at least see some of the present if we had given ourselves to clearness, we may have bid ourselves away from what we really wanted. Instead, we peered through the lens of tomorrow, looking back, obtaining a prior retrospective view in advance, reflecting on the present as already past, and a foregone conclusion. By the way I can't wait to this day is over with. If we are always just writing off all our assets including this day, now and into the future, then we are dealing with only one type of accounting. At least if you are doing this try and figure out the measuring stick you are using. One broom makes for an easy sweep.

We wrote our memoirs before we ever go to begin the journey. Actually, this is an idea just to see where your journey could go, write you future memoirs now. Writing a fictional account now of what my own personal future might be could be helpful to me in finding a better relationship for me with the passing of time. However, at some point, you must begin now. You'll have more to write about.

Keep it years away in the future if you find that easier, write a story about something ten years from now if it gives your imagination a safer course way and freer reign and you can bring it later closer to the more scary present. Maybe bring your fictional story 5 years away later.

If you think of a time frame or period in terms of a movie or a book, why can't you consider bringing something into an earlier scene in the movie or an earlier chapter of the book, somewhere closer to the now? In my fictional account I might write about my future, why not write something about the near future even next week or next month rather than just years ahead.

Another aspect of the now is permission. The permission has to be adjusted to give ourselves a chance sift through the evidence and give some examination to what we want now. I have permitted myself to wait, but do I have my permission to take action now. Do all the variables have to be in place before I make a move? Am I permitted to make a move without everything I wanted present? Granted we might have only some of the variables in place now, but we could get the others tomorrow, and then lose some of the variables we had today and the sum of the needed variables might not increase as we go forward into the future. I want to set sail, I have good winds but not the sun I like, tomorrow I might get the sun, but the winds might not be as good.

I say I want this, but not until that happens. I only have contigent permission, which at first was just an escape hatch in case my contingencies where not met with, then formed into an outright excuse to pass this by. I could have adjusted and modified on my contingencies. I neither converged nor diverged to a usable point, I never gave it enough of a look to say I did either. I had trouble putting things on a side-by-side basis as I set up prerequisites all over the place that ended up being like land mines to my interests in going forward. In forming a vision of what I can do now, try to envision what I can bring into my present on a side-by-side basis where there could be a coexistence. Can I coexist with some peace now and some fun now? Also, I might put three things on a side by side basis just to see how they stand together and see what I have within the duet or triage. I seem to think this should stand-alone and that should stand alone, or I can't do this until I have that first. By doing that, by putting something first, and then saying I can't do something else until that first thing comes into place, I am putting even a more than first value on the item I am listing first. I am putting a first and only value on this. First and only if this happens, then now I can do that. So there really isn't a second or fifth or tenth approach. Rather than just a hierarchy of preferences where something comes first, I have an actual rule that I am following. First, this must happen and only if this happens, can I proceed into the now with something else. First and only if I get my law degree, will I go out to socialize with the opposite sex, who I can then tell I have a law degree. If I had made corrections in my thinking to allow for things to happen on a side by side basis, I could have socialized while I was pursuing the law degree and I could have pursued the degree with a lighter outlook in that yes it was my first priority. But my social life wasn't dependent on my ultimate success towards obtaining this degree and therefore the weight of needing to obtain th