Life doesn't standstill, it's constantly moving, constantly flowing.

 Like a river, sometimes the flow is nice and calm and other times much faster. 

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu said:

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future.

If you are at at peace you are living in the present. 

I used my analogy of the river and the lake, when someone spoke to me about being upset by something someone had said to them. 

I asked them to imagine standing in a river, the only water that was currently touching them is the present. The water that has already flowed downstream is the past. The water upstream, which hadn’t yet reached them is the future.

The issue they were experiencing had passed on and the other person had almost certainly already forgotten it and moved on, so they had already let the matter pass downstream. One person was standing in the river and had let things move on, the other was standing in a lake and had the same water around their feet.

I believe that living in the moment does not mean that we should ignore the past or the future. We should learn from the past and through our experiences, then be able to act and react to the here and now in a more controlled way and plan more effectively for the future. Standing in the river, the water both good and bad will continue to flow.

Think about the word ‘Present’ a dictionary will show 3 different definitions;

• being in attendance
• now, as a tense
• a gift

The word can certainly be used in very different ways. What if we considered all 3 wrapped together in one context.

Imagine you are in attendance, right now and it is a gift. 

Live in the moment.