Live in the Present
Business leaders are also stressing the principle of not clinging to past practices; do not adopt age-old strategies; do not dwell in the past if you want to succeed in the present
Have you heard the story of an old man who was found to be sobbing bitterly on his deathbed? His friends asked him why he was crying so brokenheartedly.
He said to them, “In my youth, I threw away a fortune worth crores of rupees due to my licentious living and evil ways. Isn’t that cause enough for sorrow?”
“We understand,” said one of his friends, a wise man. “Can you get back your crores by crying now?” The old man retorted, “How can I get back all that money now?”
“Then why should you cry over spilt milk?”
There was no answer
Most of us live in the past. We cling to the memory of all those unhappy moments in our life.
There is no need to spend a lifetime regretting all our past mistakes. True, we must repent for them, and wherever possible, make amends; but above all, we should learn from our mistakes. There are no irreversible failures in life, only different experiences. And every experience comes to teach us a lesson. Therefore, it is futile to dwell constantly on the past. We must make the best of the present moment.
You can try this little exercise if you like: when you find yourself indulging in daydreaming, reflection or idle thought, catch yourself and become aware of what you are thinking of. Are you dwelling on the past? Are you going over your own mistakes and failures? Are you trying to visualise how things might have been different if you had acted differently? People often assume that daydreams are about the future. They will be amazed to learn how their past experiences colour their future dreams.
Surprisingly, business leaders are also stressing this principle now: do not cling to past practices; do not adopt age-old strategies; do not dwell in the past if you want to succeed in the present. The twenty-first century, which is barely ten years old now, is vastly different from the twentieth century. The IT Age is simply not the same as the old ‘Industrial Age’. The emphasis now is on networking, building business relationships. If we go by past attitudes and practices (even those that succeeded in the past), these moves might just backfire on our own business interests.
In business, as in personal life, it is important to look to the present. As I often tell my friends: the past is a cancelled cheque; the future is an unfulfilled promissory note; the present is the only cash we have in our hands; we must use it wisely and well.
Of course, our past experiences teach us valuable lessons. But when we allow the past to influence our mindset, we reject the possibility of a change for the better. For example, if a friend has let you down in the past, you must not imagine that all friends are unreliable. If your efforts have not succeeded in the past, it does not mean that you will never ever succeed in the future. That is why wise men insist that we start every day with a clean slate.
Remembering the past is all very well; but we cannot attempt to relive the past all the time; and most certainly, we must not allow our past to recreate our future, for that would be quite disastrous!
Life is here and now! We all know that life is often compared to a book, each chapter representing one particular phase of our life; but there is one major difference between my life and my book; I cannot turn back the pages of my life! I cannot revisit the past! Nor can I read the final chapter of my life before its due time. Life has to be lived in the present!