It is a terrible feeling, and though it is privately felt, it is universally understood.

It has happened to us at some point(s) in our lives. We had a chance to do something, we messed up thanks to our very own neglect, and now there is the time of consequences and the hollow promise of a new beginning.

But the problem arises, when we get to the ‘new beginning’ part, for before that it was simple acceptance of the fact you’d messed up, now it is about implementation. And the problem we face here, is that we fail to identify those phases with their respective meanings.

We don’t identify ‘messing up’ as a one-time-mistake, to learn from and move on, we identify it as an inevitable result of our undeniable incompetence. And by handing our minute mistakes, such a heavy label, we cripple ourselves from seeing beyond these trifles. The actual good, that comes from messing up and making mistakes, is completely ignored by us, and we continue to see our presently messed-up life situation, as an unescapable predicament of our own making.

This traps us in a vicious cycle of guilt and remorse, over not working hard where we should have, and cripples us from any prospect of working hard the next time around.

In this scenario, our mind doesn’t fail to come up with a million excuses to justify its stance of us being a failure, of the inability of us to accomplish anything worthwhile in the future because we’ve put ourselves to waste here and now.

This is the entrapment of the mind and ego that can very well render a person from any chance of an optimistic outlook.

Eckhart Tolle writes in “The Power of Now”

“… an emotion is the body’s reaction to your mind. What message is the body receiving continually from the ego, the false, mind-made self? Danger, I am under threat. And what is the emotion generated by this continuous message? Fear, of course.”

This fear stems from the anxiety of the past and embodies the uncertainty of the future. This is the psychological fear of something that might happen, not something happening right now. You are in the present while your mind is busy validating itself by grasping at the future. This creates an anxiety gap. You are in the present, but are worried about a phantom future.

As Eckhart Tolle continues to write:

“You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection, you cannot cope with the future.”

So what is the solution?

Rid yourself from the past and the future. Realize truly and deeply that the present moment is all you have. If you grasp this moment with all the life and all the strength that you can muster, then it is the best thing that you’re doing for yourself.

No matter that you made your whole family ashamed of something you did, or your entire company looked down upon you for a failure done precisely by you. No matter that your exams are looming over you closer and closer every day or that your life situation will go bankrupt in this amount of time.

Distance yourself from these worldly perceptions of consequences concerning time. Because when we dip a finger into the pond of tensions and worry over past and future, we are bound to be dragged into its deepest depths. And there, when we’re struggling for air, we realize that we failed to grab the present moment in which we could’ve done something for the better.

So don’t let yourself be engulfed by crippling guilt or terrifying future outcomes, for they are simply distractions from the present moment, which is the only place that you can utilize your full potential.

Once you do understand the unbound importance of only this moment, here and now, the singular fragment of time that you can grasp, you’ll never let yourself fret upon mere trifles of past or future. Then you may be able to shed the choking layer of tensions and fears, and emerge your most happiest and efficient self, for now you are truly present in the here and now, of time and space itself.

As Aldous Huxley beautifully encapsulates this sentiment in “Brave New World”:

“Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can, and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.”

And I think that is as perfectly and precisely stated as it could be.

Thanks for your reading time. I hope upon you bright days and a carefree presence in the Now.