” It is better to travel well than to arrive.”

-Gautama Buddha

I only ask for five minutes of your time. Take a deep, mindful breath, relax and contemplate the message.

Remember the time when you were a child, enjoying ice-cream and staring at the sunset? Your first date? The moment that your highest point took place in, with all the glory, joy, and pride? Your lowest point, your darkest moments that you never thought you’d get through?

The time and place may vary on the surface, but you have never been nowhere outside of here and now.

When you don’t think of a white elephant, you do it here and now. When you recount your funniest moments to your friends, you do it here and now. When you re-live your proudest moments, you do it here and now. When you worry about the future, you do it here and now. When you’re fishing on a pier, you do it here and now.

Your 5-year old self lived in the here and now. Your current self is reading this here and now. Your future self who reads this again also does so here and now. The calendar and the clock may tell a different story, but you have never been anywhere other than here and now. Therein lies the paradox of time, and while it is useful for baking cakes and planning events, life has never been anywhere but here and now.

On the surface level, this may appear alien to some, and completely natural to others.

Since you have never been anywhere but here and now, whether you reminisce on the past or contemplate the future, you may imagine/recall it, but even the experience of it happens here and now. Why not access the peace/happiness/feeling-better that you seek here and now instead of seeking it in an imaginary future or visiting a past that hath no reality outside your own imagination?

Knowing that nothing in your life and experience can exist outside here and now, would you choose peace by accepting the moment as is, or would you create your own hell through your self-created mental projections?

You have never been anywhere else, why not make here and now the home where your heart is?

Take a moment and get comfy. Take a deep breath and relax, pet your favorite animal/person and smile gently. No permission is required, for it is your birthright. Leave your plans, your concerns, your identity, heck, the world behind if you feel like it, and enjoy this moment, right here and now.

Wherever and whenever you may be, may you be well and happy. May you find happiness/peace/fulfillment here and now.