Embracing right here, right now can be one of life’s challenges.  Yet, it can also be the most freeing experience when we break free from our past focused on regrets or our future focused on worries and, hence, always looking towards an outcome.

As Eckhart Tolle eloquently says that all we have is this moment.  In addition Tolle says that if we treat the now as a means to an end, an obstacle or an enemy, we strengthen our negative reactions because we’re attached to something besides this moment.    Having said this, our thought conditioning can be such that we live in an existence of past/future, rocking back and forth in that realm. 

Let me use an analogy of the past/future existence with a DVD player.  We have just put in a movie to watch and we grab the remote to take control of how we watch it.  We press play for only a moment, and then we remember an experience from the past.  This triggers some negative emotions and our finger automatically presses “rewind.“ And in our hypnotic state, our finger is stuck as we watch the movie go backwards and replays the scene by scene event that triggered the emotions.

As our hypnotic state continues, we suddenly press “fast forward,“ and thrust ourselves forward to the future because we’ve just thought of something to worry about.  In this manner, our movie shifts frame by frame as our finger is stuck on this button. 

Ouch!  Can you imagine watching a movie and constantly pressing either the rewind or the fast forward button?  It would make for a very frustrating experience, wouldn’t it?

I’ve done this, and it isn’t fun because I never get to experience playing for the sake of playing.  I’m worried about the future or judging the past.  Not fun to exist like this….yikes!

This is the scenario we set up every time we don’t press “play,“ and live in the moment of right now.   Once we embrace right now, we do an activity for the sheer pleasure of it.  We are inspired, we are motivated and we lose ourselves in the doing because we feel good, we feel happy, we feel joy.   It’s not what we do, but the essence of why and how we’re doing something.  We don’t look towards the future, at an outcome, and say, “I’m doing X because then I’ll get Y, and when I get Y, I’ll be happy.” 

Our happiness exists right now as we embrace fun, laughter, imagination and play.  Just like children play for the sheer pleasure of playing, as adults we can remember this innate gift and Just Press Play.

Now, go do something and play.  Dance like you mean it, laugh like you mean it, make a funny face like you mean it.  Have fun playing because it feels good, and everyone else will feel good around you because you played. 

What would it be like to come home and have your children ask you, "What did you do today?"  And your answer is, "I played!"

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