Life is not one continuous stretch but a collection of years, in turn months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and ultimately moments. When some one says “I have had a great day” or “oh, it was a tough day”, if you carefully analyse, you understand that a particular moment of the day was responsible to trigger that conclusion. But then you have a tendency to hold onto a moment, revel in it and try to relive much after it has passed. In reality you know that a past moment can never be retrieved. So there is a constant struggle between what is and what was or what will be. This struggle is because what is never aligns with what was or what could be. Is it possible to understand, leave alone enjoy, if you were to watch one movie and listen to the audio track of an entirely different movie. That is what happens when the mind has a different audio track which doesn’t match the visual that is going on at that moment. So the trick lies in being in the present moment continuously.

Being in the present is basically paying attention to the ‘present’ moment. Haven’t we all had intense moments of the present? If you analyse carefully, you understand that at such moments there is no other thought about past or future but only of that particular current moment.

Anyway, what is the point in living in the past? What has been thought, said or done is what it was and no amount of reliving can change anything about it. The past exists only as a thought in your mind. So is the future. If the past is history then the future is a dream. One is dead. The other is unborn. So both are effectively unreal. When you are shooting a video, through the viewfinder you observe what is going on and record it. But at any point if you stop, rewind and view the already recorded segment, you definitely miss out recording what is going on. That is what happens when you keep reliving the past. You neither can go back in time nor can you enjoy the present moment. Same way, if you keep dreaming about the future you neither reach there nor are you here in the present. At the most the past can help you remember your successes and failures which act as reference points for improvement and betterment. Visualising the future may help you set up a goal or destination. But neither can be done at the cost of missing out the present, for the present alone allows you to act.

A simple exercise can be a mind-blowing experience. Sit quietly now for a few minutes with closed eyes. Without any judgment, conclusion, expectation or preset programming, just watch yourself within and observe how you feel. Pay attention to your body, every part, every limb, every organ as how beautifully they are aligned in their respective places, how precisely every organ carries out its function. Watch carefully within with appreciation and gratitude. Experience every little detail of the external world, the smells, shapes, textures and sounds. Feel the air going in and coming out of your nostrils – a process that goes on from the moment of birth to the last breath. How we take so much for granted! Every second so much is happening within the body, which is a mini universe, and so much in the outside universe. But this monkey of the mind, forgetting the countless blessings, makes the elephants invisible, and contemplates on trivial dead thoughts, making nonexistent dinosaurs dance around!

Consciously start experiencing and enjoying every moment. Then starting from brushing the teeth in the morning to retiring to bed in the night, even the day-to-day mundane moments turn magical. Suddenly you find you are aware of everything that has been going on for years – starting from the smell of the toothpaste, the noise of the toothbrush rubbing on the teeth, the temperature of the water while gargling, the freshness of the breath to the warmth of the blanket and the comfort of the bed! Everything seems entertaining and enjoyable! So make the most of this moment. After all it is the best gift. That is why it is termed as the present!

Question yourself. Are you in control of your emotions, or do your emotions control you? Be honest. Your answer would be that mostly your emotions control you. Let us take a simple example. Food! Often times when we over eat a favorite dish and feel miserable later, we promise ourselves never to do it again. But before we know the promise is broken. Try giving up something you like best. You would find yourself craving for it all the time, not out of hunger but out of emotional need for it. This is true of any sensual experience. Every experience you have goes through the emotional center of your brain before it gets to the rational center! Every experience has an emotional component whether you are conscious of it or not. If your emotional reaction is strong enough, it will determine your response even before you have a single rational thought about the experience.
We have a tendency to label every object, person or situation with a pain or pleasure, like or dislike tag the first time we experience it and store the file in our memory. Every time we come across the same object, person or situation we immediately open the memory file and project it on it. So much so we lose out on experiencing anything as it actually is but super-impose earlier experiences recorded in our mind. So the culprit is not outside. It is the mind. How do handle it?
Thoughts are recorded as memories which are just photographs of objects, people, situations, and experiences. Thoughts cannot cause problems. You feel miserable when you want to get rid of a particular thought at that given moment. Therefore the first thing to do is to see every thought as it is, without imposing happiness or unhappiness, likes or dislikes on it. This way thoughts lose their capacity to push you around.  

A brick is not a wall. It takes many bricks to make one. A point is not a line. It takes many of them to make one. A drop is not an ocean. It takes millions and billions of gallons to be pooled together to be an ocean. A thought is not an emotion. It takes many of them to build up one .If every thought is taken care of, then all the emotions are taken care of.

Of course thoughts are necessary to remember objects and objects are necessary for living. But happy living does not depend upon the presence or absence of objects or thoughts. A thought is like a peddler, who supplies the drug. We get under its spell not because of what it is but because we have a weakness for what it supplies us with! So the solution to the problem is Self-awareness. Self-awareness of your emotions begins by simply asking yourself throughout the day, “What am I feeling right now? Why am I feeling this way?” Then follows Self-management of emotions. Self-management of emotions begins by asking yourself the additional question, “What am I going to do with this emotion right now?” The good news is that increasing your self-awareness has a snowball effect and it leads very naturally to greater levels of self-management. Make it a daily practice to ask those questions and you will soon find yourself becoming an expert.

A thought is only a suggestion. To take it or reject it, to act, react or not is your choice. Instead of trying to escape, when you choose to play with the thoughts it becomes a lovely game. It is like ordering the best dish from the menu card. You do not live life by years .You live it by moments. If every moment is taken care of then the whole life is taken care of. Break free of your controlling emotions, and start controlling your emotions now. Have a great life!