Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about why now is the future. So here's a quote by Mark Williams who says, "Now is the future that you promised yourself last year, last month, last a week. Now is the only moment you ever really have. Mindfulness is about waking up to this." This quote makes me think of another quote I heard from Jon Kabat-Zinn who says, "This is the future of all the previous thoughts you ever had about the future.

You're in it. You're already in it. What's the purpose of all of this living. If it's only to get someplace else. And then when you're there, you're not happy anyway, you just want to be someplace else." So this is the future of all the previous thoughts you've ever had about your future.

There's something about that, that the first time I heard it, it really stopped me in my tracks. In the same way that Mark Williams quote does, where it's just very simply the acknowledgement that we have all of these thoughts throughout our life of once I get there, or once this happens, or life is just around the corner, that create this feeling of like leaning into the next moment, that there's going to be some sort of arrival. And you can explore for yourself, even right now. Like what might you be waiting for, expecting to get to that once you do get it, the pay raise or the move or getting into college or getting the job or the relationship. It's like, once I get that, then that'll be my refuge.

Whatever the story is, we're conditioned to think we'll arrive in some future moment where we can finally relax and we'll have that happiness. But it's important to reflect on how this thought pattern has been with us for a long time. Have you not believed this previously about moments that have already come and gone, where you thought, you know, once I get there, but then you did get there to some extent, and now you're still kind of on that treadmill. This is something that we work with as human beings. These are the neuroses that we have built into us that can keep us leaning into the next moment.

And it's not to say future thinking and designing your life is not important. It's very important. But we just have to be careful to not miss all of the moments along the way. This is a practice. And as always, meditation does help us do it.

But you can bring more of this awareness into your life and just notice that feeling of once this happens. What if it's already happening? What if this moment of your life was worth your presence right here right now? What would it be like to take that relationship? Thank you for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.