Living In The Now Novels & Stories

"I don't say it now to make either one of us dwell too heavily on it. I say it simply because I genuinely don't want to ever stop noticing what it actually means, being fully present here for all of this instead of only hearing about it secondhand much later." Selene leans into him fully, the specific comfortable ease that has genuinely become entirely theirs across these years of careful, deliberate rebuilding together. "Then simply keep noticing it, every single day. I think that's actually the whole ongoing practice now, at this particular point in our lives. Not endlessly earning your place here anymore, the way you once felt you had to. Just noticing it properly, every single day, so it

"We all have the same amount of time. We're living in it. The Now. The Past is behind us. Gone. It's done. The future? Who knows what's there or how much of it there might be for any of us? No one." "Elizabeth…" There's pain in his voice… I twist to face him, tugging the sheet around myself. "That friend of yours who died. Bobby. Sixteen years old you said. I bet if you'd asked him that morning, he'd have said he had sixty years ahead of him. He didn't have sixty minutes. No one could have known it." I lay my hand on his chest. His heart thumps against my palm. "All any of us have is the Now. And we all have exactly the same amount of that."

“We did it.” “We did. On time.” “You want lunch? Real lunch. Not desk food. Somewhere with actual plates.” “Yes,” I said. “I actually do. I think I earned sitting down for twenty minutes.” On the walk to the café I realized I had gone three full days without once checking my phone for a message that wasn’t coming. The past had not disappeared. It had simply been forced to wait outside the door while the work took every available hour. For the first time since the wedding night, I had spent consecutive days living entirely in the present tense. It felt like proof that I could still take up space in my own life.

For now, at least, I would focus on the present, on the things I could control, and leave the rest to fate. __ I couldn't help but feel a spark of anticipation in my chest, once I sat down for the meeting, the air felt alive with the chatter and excitement of the attendees, . The ball was fast approaching, and there was still much to be done to ensure its success. But for now, I allowed myself to bask in the camaraderie of my fellow organizers, sharing laughs and swapping stories as we discussed the final details of the event.

It's always been leading up to now, the most goddamn inevitable thing to happen, obviously. It's been an hour now, I think. I stopped focusing on anything that didn't need my attention after everything decided to hit me in my face like a damn explosion. I'm not even sure how I feel at this point, what do I need to feel, to expect, as I continue thinking about things, about this disaster and self destruction, sometimes it's like that, I numb out my pain because it's always been so constant that eventually I started learning to live through the pain.

Or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don't want and how to get what we have always dreamed of. It's being here now that's important. There's no past, and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it, and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one. The biggest mistake we make is the one that most of us make; we do not live in the moment enough.

He put it in and he got in after taking off his boxer. "What's on your mind? Are you okay?" He asked and I looked at him shaking. "I don't know where we are going after this step. I don't know where it will end too." I said truthfully. "Live in the moment." He said and I shook my head not understanding. "What will happen tomorrow, let it be tomorrow. What will happen next week, let it next week. Enjoy the moment and just.. be grateful and happy." He smiled and I looked at the water blankly.

"Through my experience of life, I have learned one thing. Life is unpredictable, no one knows what is going to happen next and we can't change our past either. What's past is past and future is uncertain, the only thing that we have in our hands is present" He paused giving me time to infer his words. "By mourning over the past that you can't change or by overthinking about your future which is absolutely out of your control you are just ruining your present" He looked into my eyes deeply. "Learn to live into the moments, facing life's difficulties bravely and expecting the unexpected" There was a stillness in the environment as he was finished explaining things. "You know what?" He raised h

She practiced being present with what was. Kael's quality in the last months was the quality she had observed in patients who had a good relationship to what was coming—not peace exactly, or not only peace, but the specific settling into the present moment that happened when you were no longer spending energy on the future that was not going to arrive in the form you had hoped. He was on the east yard bench. He was at dinner. He was in the woodworking outbuilding that he had not been able to use in months but that he sat in and looked at with the quality of someone who was grateful for having had it.

“I don’t think I’m looking to change quite like that. I just want to be more assertive and to get out of my own head.” Lila clucked her tongue, though it was barely audible over the wind “I know that’s a hard one for you, girl, but maybe you’ll have an easier time of it out here. Just sun and sand. How can you not want to just be in the moment?” “Exactly! Just be in the moment, that’s my new mantra,” I agreed excitedly.