We Have Only the Present

I thought a great deal about the future, about the things that may happen, about the things I should do, about the things I have to do, and this somehow took me out of the present and always left me with a feeling of “when that happens,” as though I were always waiting for something, always waiting for things to happen. In the end, this creates anguish, impatience, and frustration, but, above all, it takes us out of the present.

I remember what it was like to wake up, as a child, on a Sunday, and to have no expectation, no projection, no murmuring, no worry; only to get up and sit on the sofa, for example. The mind did not wander; there was only presence, the observing of the present, of the things that were happening, of perceiving the feeling.

We can return to being like that if we cleanse our mind, trusting and surrendering the future to God, and stopping the constant creation of projections of how things will happen, and accepting that it is impossible to know and that we have only the present.