"Just as the moon has no light of it's own,but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present" Eckhart Tolle

This quote was at the beginning of a daily guide that I often read. It talks about how we hold onto past experiences and dwell on thoughts of what we could have done, or should have done. I have, in the past, wasted much time and emotional energy obsessing about things, until one time I realized that I had spent most of a week obsessing, wasting energy and emotion on something that was past, all gone, kaput. I finally realized that what is in the past cannot be changed. Of course, I knew that I wasn't changing things, but somehow going over and over what I should have done was a habit that I imposed on myself, perhaps as a way to atone for an error or to punish myself, thus becoming more worthy. Sounds really weird  doesn't it?

I guess we all have behaviors that are not serving us. The trick is to recognize them, stop them and move on.It isn't always easy to stop habits, but if we stop and ask ourselves if we're accomplishing anything positive, sometimes that helps. I still find myself trying to do the past over in a different way sometimes, but eventually, I stop myself with a reminder that the past can't be changed.

Speaking of Eckhart Tolle, I wish I could really experience what he talks about, living only in the present. I'm aware that we only exist in the "now", but the "now" keeps moving into the future, taking us along with it. I've read other people and I think to be fully present, you have to pay attention to what is happening right now and quit slipping into planning the future or trying to restructure the past. Obviously, we do need to pay attention to future plans, and reliving lovely memories is nice, we just need to pay attention to living and not just waiting until the future to actually live.