Trust the Moment

Since my last four posts have been about trust, it’s safe to assume that trust is important to me. In my first post I talked about being able to trust my parents. The second was about trusting friends who show up. The third was about the value of trust and how it helps make good things happen. The fourth was trusting myself. This one may be the hardest for me to accomplish, trusting the moment.

Most of my life I categorized each moment in one of two ways: either it was supposed to be this way, or it’s not. That was a value judgement. To make that judgement I mostly relied on one thing, whether I liked what was happening or I didn’t.

This started to change when I read the following quote by Eckhart Tolle:

“Accept-then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”

Tolle talks about the value of the present moment at length in two books, The Power of Now and A New Earth. Until I read them I thought my purpose in life was to get upset about moments I didn’t like and fight against them. I was supposed to beat life at its own game. That’s how I won. It hadn’t occurred to me that accepting the present moment was anything more than giving up and that’s what losers do.

As I read more of Tolle’s writing I found that trusting the present moment, “as if I had chosen it,” could be a powerful tool in my life. I had a flash of insight once when I really listened to the Beatles song, Let it Be. Here is the chorus and a link to the song.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDYfEBY9NM4

“Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be

Yeah there will be an answer, let it be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be”.

Starting from a place of acceptance is effective. It minimizes negative emotions so I can think more clearly and bring all my mental powers to a situation. Dale Carnegie said in his book Stop Worrying and Start Living, “No one living has enough emotion and vigor to fight the inevitable and, at the same time, enough left over to create a new life. Choose one or the other.”

It also brings another strong ally, possibilities. Maybe what’s happening is beneficial to me in ways I hadn’t thought of before. The more options I consider, the better the possible range of outcomes. As the Rolling Stones said in one of their songs, “you can’t always get what you want, But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find you get what you need.” I’ll only find it’s what I need if I’m open to possibilities.

I also have much less stress in my life. A lot has been written about the effects of stress on people. We’ve all felt it. Larry Eisenberg was right when he said, “For peace of mind resign as general manager of the universe.” Not everything needs to go as I think it should.

Learning to trust the moment is a skill that takes practice. I doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s something I work on every day. I’ve found when I do it well, good things can happen. The rest are just details.

May you have enough today, one moment at a time.