Several years ago, when my b-school prepared us for
the job placement program, we were asked to come up with a tagline that
describes our philosophy. The tagline would appear below our names and call out
the philosophy we follow. As my classmates started to write very catchy and
wonderful taglines for them, I was forced to find one for me. I had no clue how
to create a tagline and I slept that night with a confused brain. Next morning,
the placement representative appeared in front of me and asked me to write my
tagline in the paper he showed. Without a tagline they would not print my
profile in the placement brochure that ultimately decides my future. Two years
of management classes, eight trimesters, forty plus subjects, sleepless nights
of assignments, exams… nothing matters, but that moment decides the future –
what a predicament! I grabbed the paper and wrote my tagline there: “Present
moment is inevitable”.
When I was attending my job interview from campus,
one of the interviewer asked me the meaning of that tagline. I smiled at him
and said, “Whatever I have done in the past or whatever I promise to do in the future
are meaningless unless this moment you think it is worth hiring me – I will
have to surpass this moment”. And they hired me!
When the days passed, I got to know the deeper
meaning of the present moment. Wise people and great books told me the beauty
of the present moment.
Imagine you are in rush hour and you are stuck in
your city’s worst traffic jam. The delay means you are going to be late for a
very important meeting. You have choices. Do you choose to worry yourself into
a frenzy and arrive not only late but stressed? Or do you choose to accept the
reality of the moment as it is, in all its inevitability? In which case, you
could then relax and take whatever action you possibly can to improve the
situation.
There is one thing that everybody is seeking for, and
that is happiness. The real happiness is there in the present moment. The
nature of the mind is that it leaves all the pleasant memories and it grabs
onto those few unpleasant events and chews on it. If you are happy now, the
past will not torment you and the future will take care of itself.
German-born Eckhart Tolle, author of the bestseller,
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, spent two years sitting
on park benches “in a state of the most intense joy” after an epiphany. He emphasizes
the importance of being aware of the present moment as a way of not being
caught up in thoughts of the past and future. Just observe your mind when it is
dwelling on the past: A mind stuck in the past is either regretful (“I wish it
hadn’t happened like that”), angry (“It shouldn’t have been that way”) or
trapped in glorifying the past (“It was so wonderful”).
A person without a job thinks, “When I get a job then
I’ll be happy,” but a person with a job often thinks, “When I get a promotion,
then I’ll be happy.” Someone who is single thinks, “I’ll be happy when I find
my soul mate and get married,” but a married person may think they’ll be happy
when they have children, but those with children often postpone their happiness
to a time when their kids have flown the nest! Happiness in the future is an
illusion.
Have you noticed how when you are doing something you
love you become so totally immersed in the present moment? During these times,
thoughts of the past or the future don’t come into your mind very much, and if
they do they pass away more quickly. It is happiness for me when I play football
with my four year old son in the park on Friday evenings. This is because I do
not think of anything else at that moment and we play a 100% football!
Happiness can only be met when we embrace the present
moment.
