“All I know is: our Chinese live in the expectation. Expectation, is that the word close to Future? The farmers grow their rice in the spring, and they water it and expect it grow every day. The rice sprouts turn into green and the rice pole grow up taller. Then summer comes and the farmers look forward to grain growing bigger. Then the autumn harvest and the grain becomes golden. Their expectation is nearly fulfilled, but not complete. After the harvest they separate the straw and millet. The straw goes to the shepherd’s pens or the pig’s yard, and the millet goes to the market for sale. All this is so that a family can have better life in the winter and in the coming Spring Festival. In the winter they burn the roots and grass on the fields to nourish the soil for next year’s re-plant. Everything is for the next step. So look this nature, life is about the expectation, but not about now, not about today, or tonight. So you can’t only live in today, that will be the doom day.” Xiaolu Guo, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

I thought the above extract was rather interesting as it crystallised something for me. We are always being encouraged to “Live in the Now!“, which I have always considered something of a challenge. I have had friends who have considered “Being spontaneous” as a higher state of being. The thing is that real life requires us to find a balance between these two extreme states. It is a “Both… And” world not an “Either..or” one.

Of course we should be as fully present in the moment as we can be, but we have to make time to plant seeds for tomorrow too. Finding this balance, and shifting our energy and attention appropriately is the challenge.

So today’s challenge is Be Present Now…. And act in the awareness that the choices you make in this instant are already determining you future, so make sure it is a future you wish to live through!

“Don’t let the past steal your present.” Cherralea Morgen

“We had to learn…that it did not really matter what we expected from life but rather what life expected from us.” Viktor Frankl