Just Today

by Todd Pequeen

There is always something to stress about. Even when health and happiness are present we often create stress for a variety of reasons. Living this way, in this space, is a mistake. Time is a delusion the mind is happy to hold hands with. I’m sure the cynics are chuckling right now but let me explain. Inside our heads our minds are looking to identify with something. Most of the people I know dwell on memories from the past or their plans for the future. When is my next vacation turns into I don’t want this vacation to end. There is a compulsion to expel the present for the next job on the list, or to space out on what was so good and how to get it back. Obsession with this occurs simply because we can firmly identify with the past, as we have already lived it, and the perfect future is a dream, perhaps even a promise we made ourselves which will be the end all, be all. Whichever we choose, they are both illusions.

Since I’ve returned from the States I’ve noticed my thinking is following this pattern. Two months away from anywhere will obviously change who we are, but my stress has been interesting for me to recognize. I have a million thoughts about projects for my house and for my business, not to mention my health program and social obligations, add in some financial stress and I could be a wreck. Thus, I have bought into time being an important factor and have been slightly removed from the most important obligation I have as a human…to be fully present and in the moment. To be lusciously enveloped with whom I am talking too, what I am doing, graciously accepting each occurrence that transpires. I do this easily when I massage or surf, but when I am out and about, or doing manual labor I can veer into the wrong lane. Back to the unreality of what is to come. Just writing my thoughts brings me home, back to where I need to be, the space where the rest of my life will unfold. The now, the present, just today is the factor that is constant, the place where my mind is free. Here I let the magical forces of life come to me. My head, heart, and happiness depend on it.

I know that tomorrow will take care of itself. I also know that if I take care of myself the best way I know how, I am setting myself up for more success. I have been living this way for so long that it is strange I have had a temporary lapse into negative consciousness. It feels wonderful to me to be exempt from pain, fear, worry, doubt, where suffering cannot remain within me. Negative influences need time to exist, they cannot when I am in the Now. Playing with time in our heads can be a disaster. We can, just today, feel brand new in present time and end the habitual patterns that rely on escaping the Now, with simple awareness of it. Anxiety ridden or pleasure filled future is no more real than dwelling on anything from the past. Wow, it is great to be back in Manuel Antonio!

(Todd Pequeen is a graduate of the N.Y. Institute of massage and has been working independently here in Manuel Antonio for 10 years. He can be reached at 8847-2010.)