We’re so busy running from where we’ve been, trying to get to where we’re going, that we’re never where we’re at.
Moral: Try to live in the present moment. The past is a memory… you can’t change it. The future is unknowable… it hasn’t happened yet. We only have control over the present moment.
I once did a research paper on the great saints and heroes of the Christian faith. People like St. Augustine, St. Frances, St. Benedict, Teresa of Avila, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Wesley, and many more. I wanted to see if they had anything in common. It turns out they did. Although they were very different in many ways, they all did have one thing in common. At some point in their life, each one of them made a choice to live every day as if it were going to be their last day on earth. From that point forward their lives were transformed into something remarkable. Freed from the shackles of past regrets (guilt) and worries about the future (anxiety), they were able to live their lives true to their most authentic self. Like children they were free to enjoy every moment, marveling at the miracle of life and the natural world. In their minds they were just being themselves. But to the rest of the world they were viewed as saints.
Most people view the “saints” as if they were some sort of holy super-humans, possessing some special connection with the divine that is unattainable to the rest of us. But that is not true. It within reach of each and every one of us. What’s the secret? Choose to live in the present day, for it may be our last.
Common sense:
Never eat anything bigger than your head.
Never stick anything in your ear smaller than your elbow.
How many apples are in an apple seed?
It has long been my belief that the best way to change the world is by writing fiction. When you try to change people’s minds through direct confrontation, their internal biases immediately throw up barriers of resistance to new ideas and they stop listening (or reading). However, when people get lost in a world of imaginative fiction they enter into a hypnagogic state that allows ideas and images to bypass the conscious mind and flow into the subconscious (or unconscious) mind. Ideas that would have been rejected outright suddenly seem plausible in the imaginary world of the fiction writer.
Consider the works of Jules Verne. If he had proposed building nuclear powered submarines or flights to the moon in the 1800’s, people would have labeled him a crackpot and laughed him out of the room. But his works, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and From Earth to the Moon captured people’s imaginations. His thoughts became words and his words entered the subconscious minds of his readers, where they acted like seeds, germinating and producing fruits that led to modern day submarines and space ships. By planting the seeds of imagination, impossible dreams became modern day realities, as his words were passed from one mind to another over the years.
When you share your thoughts and imaginations through the gift of words, in the form of fiction writing, you are scattering seeds into the world. You may not see immediate results, or even think anyone cared about your writing. But, over time, the seeds you plant could change the world in remarkable ways. Like an apple seed, that produces a tree, which produces more apples, apple seeds and trees, and so on, you may never know how many of your ideas will bear fruit, or how many minds they will touch over the years, either directly or indirectly. You might just change the world.
So, don’t doubt yourself… Keep on writing.