I get these strange comments to some of my posts. I recently posted a piece on the importance of paying attention to the here and now, which made the point that it’s the only time and place that you can be – and if you couldn’t be bothered to turn up to the reality of the here and now, how can you reasonably expect to get anything much out of life. I received a comment – from someone who signed themselves as a “personal development expert” said that, OK, the here and now is all very well – but really personal development is about choice and awareness.
So, here’s the big question: What is Awareness? Let’s make it even easier – what can you be aware of at any particular point in time? Of course, you could be aware of your thoughts – most people aren’t because, as decades of research prove, most people aren’t aware of anything much at all. You could be aware that you’re feeling frustrated or fearful – but these so-called emotions are nothing more than the product of the thoughts that you’re not aware of in the first place. You could be aware of how you feel about yourself – your own self-image – but that’s not awareness, that’s getting involved in the continuous internal power struggle between you and your personality (remember, personality is dervided from the Latin word, “persona”, meaning a mask and your personality is simply the amalgamation of all the personal “snapshots” you took as a child).
Real awareness is being aware of the here and now. To paraphrase the Buddha, when I am walking, I am aware that I am putting one foot in front of the other. Only in the present moment will you find reality. In fact – scientific fact as probed by quantum physics – only in the present moment does anything exist and all that exists is changing moment to moment.
And what of the choice we must make? We have a stark choice that has a fundamental impact on our lives – we can choose to be aware or we can (and this is the mindless choice made by normal people) choose to live in a make-believe world created by our own, predominantly negative, thoughts. This is a choice that we must make time and again, in each moment because no one becomes aware and stays aware – it is a continual in exactly the same way that the reality of the world in which we live is an ongoing process.
The life you are living is how it is as a result of your action, reaction or inaction in the present moment. The normal person reacts to their own thoughts and perceptions. The extraordinarily successful person acts on the basis of the facts in the moment and, as a result, creates a life that is exciting, spontaneous, adventurous, fulfilled and successful. Now, do you think you might be up to making that choice?
