The meaning of life

Countless philosophies are written on this age-old quest to know the meaning of everything we experience during our lives. But those have merely been intellectual quests. I shall tell you what life taught me right away.

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It‘s this moment…

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It‘s also this moment…

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And this one too…

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Do you feel it? Are you fully aware of it? Or did your mind drift as you were reading these words?

Most of the time, our awareness is absorbed in thinking either about the past or about the future, while our present moment passes right in front of our lives. We miss chances to fully experience events in life.

But we knew how to be present when we were children. In those days we were immersed in the play of life. We experienced life thoroughly. We were joyful, calm, attentive… What happened?

Mind happened. Mind strengthened. As adults, we now live in mind reality. Society is built on man-made concepts guarding the status-quo, and to-do lists, creating a constant sense of urgency. The former makes us lament the past, while the latter makes us dwell in the future. Whatever we do, this moment goes wasted.

I once asked a pine tree, and it murmured:

The only thing you can change in your live is the degree of awareness you put into each moment.

How much awareness do we put into each moment? How much acceptance and gratitude do we give to life for granting us these moments?

They are here, now. The next moment they‘ll vanish. And then our mind will drift into the past, weighing on them, all the while the next moment comes and vanished, once again. And thus, the cycle repeats.

We have no control over the past or the future. Why fake control, when we know the outcomes are out of control? Let‘s be practical and focus on the aspect of our existence that we indeed have control—the moment.

There is vast power in the present moment. It‘s waiting for us to take it. We deserve it.