If you try to absorb all of your experiences you can feel the energy you put out into the world begin to work more effectively in creating a center within your mind.
This would apply to really tasting your food. Focus on what the taste sensations are on your tongue. This food is what is sustaining your life, so to connect and feel what is being put in your body makes a more satisfying experience.
When you focus on living for the now you can connect with people on a much more satisfying level. Really take the time to listen to someone, engage in their energy, and take them in as who they are. Your energy will feed off of one another and everyone around you will feel more appreciated, this will reflect back to you with the positive feelings that are given back to you from your friends, family and lovers.
In this book they talk about a few of the negative emotions that correlate to living in the past, or hoping for the future but forgetting to actually live your life for the present day. Doing so only puts your happiness on hold, why not take that and let it start today, regardless of situations. Situations don't determine your ability to have a positive or negative outlook towards life, you are the only one in control of how you react to life.
Living in the past:
If one lives in the past they will be stuck with a hopeless set of problems that can never be taken back, because it has already happened. The past is concluded with absolutely no way to take it back. These would include guilt, regret, resentment, grievance, sadness, bitterness. These begin to envelope themselves into your character and determine how you feel day to day.
Living for the future. Now this is something that I definitely do, and the most profound thing I realized today came from my ways of living for the future. From the book itself he points out that if one lives in the future you will live with feelings such as unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry. All of these are created by living the present moment with a bad case of the "what ifs." Living for the future to bring you happiness or worrying that it will take away your happiness, means you are living and experiencing potential pain for no reason. If you live in constant fear that your partner may some day leave you, or become unfaithful to you, then everytime you go there in your head, you actually bring that reality to life, not in an actual way, but your physically feel the emotions play out as if the action were taking place in the current moment. That is adding unnecessary pain to your mindset. You are punishing your mind for something that may or may not ever actually happen.
This is what I realized that I am most guilty of while living for the future and not staying in the present moment. This doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with happiness, but rather it gave me a means to build excuses for myself in the present. Lets say for instance going to the gym. My boyfriend and I are trying to make it a routine goal to wake up and go to the gym. This is a very difficult task for me, and while I have been 30% successful at achieving this goal, I do keep giving my future self the responsibility of fulfilling my goal in the future. If I sleep in and miss this day, I can make up for it tomorrow, tomorrow can easily become a week, which become two weeks, which can easily lead to your goal drying up and you saying oh well I tried. Another example is I keep saying as soon as I get this area of my life, I will make sure I read all of my books, or I will focus on creating my artwork more, or I will write more in my blog, etc. When I continue to put the stipulations of once "this" then "that" I keep making excuses for myself to not complete every goal I have set for myself in my current life. Why do I have to have my car clean before I can make sure I focus on reading for 30 minutes at night before bed. This only creates a life lived full of making excuses for your lack of drive, and making yourself feel justified with those excuses.
Obviously if you decide you would like to read this book, I don't say believe everything you read as it should be a new bible to your way of life. Read it and open your mind to creating a potential life by growing yourself as a person with new ideas to try to find a completeness to living life to its fullest potential.
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