“All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was… what he was doing.”

* Master Yoda

If you’re like me, and I believe you are, you’re never truly present. I recommend Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth” to help you fix the problem. And it is a problem.

I went out for a 12 mile run today. It took three hours. I stopped at the aquarium to watch the sun rise over the harbor. I sat on a bench at the battery. I stopped for a biscuit and coffee. I don’t have a race coming up so I decided to relax and enjoy the morning.

For the first time in a long time I decided to be present.

I love to cross finish lines. I love accomplishing a big goal that required months of work. It’s not the race. It’s the planning and executing.

I don’t love to run. I run because it gets me to that end goal. I don’t take the time to enjoy the strain on my body or the sun on my skin or the views. I don’t think to myself how lucky I am that I have some peace and quiet, alone, with no laptop or conference call. No kids screaming “help me.” And that’s sad.

I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m always in the future. I’m always looking to the next place I have to go or the meeting I have to get to. I’m thinking about the next business trip or Harlowe’s cello lesson. How is traffic going to be today? What’s my training plan tomorrow morning? What’s the Push A/R? How did Frothy Beard do last night?

I’m never just here. Like, right HERE right NOW. I know that and I know it’s not good.

I’m not different. I believe that’s most of us. We are just thinking about where we need to go next. Get the kids to school, get to work, take the kids to practice, get everyone fed. If not, then we are busy watching someone else live their life. We are glued to the vacationing couple on Instagram or the two women fighting on that reality show.

How many of us are really living in the moment and enjoying the Now? How many of us are wasting precious minutes thinking about how little time we have left?

Eckhart Tolle focuses on those questions in masterpiece “The Power of Now.” In his follow up, “A New Earth,” he refocuses here, but on a global level, explaining what’s happening to the world as a result of us not living in our limited moments.

He writes:

A vital question to ask yourself is: What is my relationship with the present moment? Then become alert to find out the answer. Am I treating the Now as no more than a means to an end? Do I see it as an obstacle? Am I making it into an enemy? Since the present moment is all you ever have, sense Life is inseparable from the Now, what the question really means is: what is my relationship with Life?

Those are important questions we must ask ourselves.

I love Tolle’s writings and I love this one. I’ve been putting in work in recent months to live in the now. I’m getting better, especially as it relates to the family, but I have a long way to go. I recommend you read this book.

#14 in 2022