“Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” Matthew 6:34 NIV.
We experience two types of time, chronological and psychological. Which one we pay the most attention to not only drives the results we get, but it affects our well-being and determines our levels of joy in life.
Most of us spend our psychological time either regretting the past or worrying about the future. In fact, we probably all vacillate between them many times a day. One minute we’re lost in reliving a scene from the past that brings us shame, regret, or even heartache. The next minute we’re worried about paying the bills, next month, diseases we might get as we age, or global catastrophes that may or may not ever happen.
As challenging as it is to stay present to ourselves in this moment, it’s the key to sanity. The past is nothing but a memory trail in our minds. The future isn’t here yet. The only thing we really have is right now, this moment, this breath, this present life and, nothing else. In that sense, no past or future exist. Only now.
If we can learn to honor each moment as it unfolds, we’ll be happier and healthier on our journey. When we don’t live fully into each moment, we’re robbing ourselves of the joy we could have and we set ourselves up for misery in all the nows to come. The world peddles worry. It uses scarcity as a tactic to manipulate us to buy whatever it’s selling. Jesus taught us to live in a simpler, more present way in the radical now.