Being Erica Season 2: Accepting the Present (early access)
The moral case for understanding how accepting the present can have benefits and drawbacks.
Most of us wish we could find a way to live in the moment.
To give up on what happened in the past and not to worry so much about the future. We'd love to be able to stop and smell the roses and live every day like it's our last. As if nothing else matters but the current moment. If we could only live that way, we could be free of everything that has been holding us back. All those bad things we'd done in the past and the concern that whatever we're doing now might screw things up for whatever future we're hoping to have. It takes a lot of time and energy to spend your time worrying about things to the point that you wish it would just stop. What we really need to do is just be in the moment. You can feel a whole lot of power in that simplified view of the world. Particularly once you've found a way to let go of the past.
Previously in this space, we've looked at the problem of living in the past. Of becoming obsessed with the idea that if only you could fix your past mistakes, that everything would be perfect. You can't fix your past mistakes though, all you can do is learn to see them less as mistakes and more as things to learn from. But that's not the end of the story, because once you do find a way to learn from the past and to accept what you've done, it can be tempting to think that now everything is fine. Your past is behind you and all that matters is right now. Focusing on who you are and what's so great about your life. This doesn't always end well though.
“Why can't I? It's a question that never goes away. Our whole lives are spent chaffing against the rules, pushing back the boundaries, trying to find the loophole. Over and over we resist any attempt to box us in. To curtail our freedom, we ask the question... why can't I? And when the answer comes back, we never like what we hear. Consequences, when we ask the question why can't I they're right there staring us in the face. The answers we don't want to hear.”
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