Living Now

While traveling, I’ve been reminded of this quote from Alan Watts: “No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.”

In other words, how can we plan for a future that isn’t rooted in what’s happening right now?

When we drop into the present, leaving future and past behind, we free ourselves from a pre-planned, patterned response to react more dynamically and more fluidly and perhaps more authentically to what is happening in the moment.
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When I’m at home, in work mode, I put my head down and plan out my days and weeks to the hour and rely on my patterned responses to get me through a busy schedule. This trip has reminded me that there is another way to move through life: live now, without expectation, without attachment to how planned events unfold.