Live in the now?

Reader question:

Please explain “live in the now” (“the now”?) in this passage:

“My children don’t understand,” she said. “They only live in the now. I have to tell my son that I don’t really have the money to do such and such. ‘But Mama why, that doesn’t make sense, you work every day?’ he says.”

My comments:

Children sometimes have a problem understanding money issues. My niece, for example, once got really perplexed when her mom told her she had no more money. “Why?” she asked, “Why don’t you get some more from the machine?”

Having seen her mom withdraw money from the ATL machine sometimes, she thinks the machine in the bank is where people get their money from.

And she probably believes, too, that the machine produces the money whenever you want it and by whatever amount you want it, no questions asked.

Yeah, life would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, if it be that simple?

Anyways, children think that way because they’re simple. They live in the now, “the now” meaning the present “now”, or the present moment, right now. They don’t understand the sequence of events that leads to one having money put in the bank, the work ma and pa have to do to earn it, and not lots of it either.

Anyways, when you live in the now, you have little sense of time, the past or the future. The present moment is all there is. Three-year-old toddlers, for example, can play with water and sand for hours without getting bored. That’s because they are immersed in the moment. They enjoy themselves so much they don’t get tired, either.

“Live in the now”, by the way, is a Taoist idea. It is also claimed to be a Buddhist idea. Both notions are correct. Living in the now is an oriental philosophy, an age-old idea shared by philosophers of the east.

According to this philosophy, there is no past, there is no future, there is only this moment, the present, the now, right now.

What about tomorrow? Don’t we have a tomorrow?

Tomorrow, when it comes, becomes today, doesn’t it? So therefore, life is made up of a series of present moments.

And if you look at life this way, you may, for one thing, spend less time on worrying. You may have a better focus, a better focus on the task at hand, whatever the task is. And you may get to enjoy what you do a little bit better, whatever it is that you do, be it watching children playing with water and sand or reading a book, taking a walk in the park or cooking a meal.

Lest we stray too far, let’s get back to children and, remember, children are our role models. As adults, we should learn to be children again.

Be children again?

Yeah, no kidding. Let’s learn to live in the moment and be child-like again.

Child-like, not childish, okay?

Ok, here are more media examples of people who live in the now or the moment or the present:

1. There is a great misunderstanding about living in the now, based on John Bachman’s guest editorial of December 22. We can only assume John has adopted the sound bites from people who have not read and studied the subject.

We live in the now and are avid readers and followers of Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer and James Arthur Ray. We even own our personal copy of “The Secret.”

When Oprah Winfrey hosted the worldwide live webcast with Tolle to discuss his book, “A New Earth,” our family room was packed for 10 weeks with our friends.

Living in the now does not preclude planning, setting goals or pondering one’s future. In fact, living in the now is enriched by planning for the future. We experienced a “Harmonic Wealth” weekend with James Arthur Ray in Chicago and spent all of our time understanding the potential of our future and setting action to our goals. But when it came time for the moment, James was in it, totally focused on what was going on around him.

Contrary to the opinion of many, living in the now does not mean sitting under a tree until your dreams fall from the sky and land in your lap. Rather it is setting clear goals and then being present so you can be aware and open to opportunities when your intentions are knocking on your door. How many times have we heard about the person so focused on the future they did not see that what was happening right before their eyes was their dream come true, only in a slightly different form than imagined? They missed achieving their goals because they were never in the moment.

Perhaps the current onslaught of crises is not caused by living in the moment as John contends. Instead of being anywhere close to the present moment, people live in a future reality counting their pile of cash.

What CEO or business person does not know about planning and setting goals? What newscast has occurred without planning? We all know how to plan.

Those in the throes of the financial debacle and political corruption are perhaps not conscious of their actions and refuse to wake up and smell the roses. If we are present, we are aware of our actions.

After setting our intentions, we will continue to live in the present. For if we are not in the moment, how else can we be accountable for our actions? Actions happen now. For when the future arrives, it is now.

- Plan for the future; live in the now, BusinessRecord.com, January 24, 2009.

2. Ricky Martin thinks he always needs to “be in the moment” to continue his longevity.

The She Bangs singer has been making music since he was 12 and a member of pop group Menudo. After five years he went on to have a hugely successful solo career and is happy to share what it takes to stay at the top of the game.

“Persistence, surround yourself with the right people and to be in the moment with my eyes wide open,” he told perezhilton.com. “I live the moment.”

The 43-year-old has had ups and downs in his career and faced speculation about his sexuality for many years. He finally confirmed he was gay in March 2010, less than two years after having twin boys Matteo and Valentino, born by a surrogate mother. His children have opened up new avenues for him in his career, with him releasing a kids book, Santiago the Dreamer in Land Among the Stars, in 2013.

“My kids love music but they have inspired me to create/write children's book, which trust me, it was not in my plans ten years ago,” he laughed.

The Puerto Rican records music in many different languages and has sold over 70 million records worldwide. But Ricky doesn’t find any one particular dialect hard to sing, he just enjoys fans getting to hear his music.

“I’ve recorded in many difference languages since the beginning of my career. Whatever it takes to spread the message out there,” he said. “[The song writing process] is never the same; you just don’t know when it’s going to hit you. You just gotta be open.”

- Ricky Martin: I live in the now, Music-News.com, February 10, 2017.

3. Jennifer Lawrence has been called out for scolding a foreign reporter who read questions off his phone during a backstage press conference at the Golden Globes on Sunday night.

Lawrence, who had just taken out the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy for her role in “Joy,” fielded a question from a reporter in attendance and interrupted him mid-sentence.

“You can’t live your whole life behind your phone, bro,” she said. “You can’t do that, you’ve got to live in the now.”

The reporter, who appeared to have translated his questions on his phone, then started to ask the 25-year-old actress how she sees herself for the upcoming Oscars, but she quickly shut him down.

“We’re at the Golden Globes. If you put your phone down, you’d know that,” Lawrence fired back.

- Jennifer Lawrence calls out reporter for using his phone, FoxNews.com, January 11, 2016.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.