All we have is the present moment. We can learn from the past, but to dwell on it in a way that makes us feel guilty or want to blame is unhealthy. And when it comes to the future, it can serve as a guide of where we want to go, but obsessing about it serves no purpose. Instead of spending most of your precious time on the past or future, choose to be present now… in the present moment. It is here where you can create a peaceful and happy life.

Keith’s References:

Wayne Dyer, an important self-help counselor who has written many best sellers including Your Erroneous Zones and Pulling Your Own Strings. Dyer criticized societal focus on guilt, which he saw as an unhealthy immobilization in the present due to actions taken in the past. He encouraged readers to see how parents, institutions, and even they, themselves, had imposed guilt trips upon themselves. Although Dyer initially resisted the spiritual tag, by the 1990s he had altered his message to include more components of spirituality when he wrote the book Real Magic and discussed higher consciousness in the book Your Sacred Self. He passed away at age 75. www.waynedyer.com.

Tara Brach PH. D., a Buddhist psychologist, author and lecturer. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW). Dr. Brach teaches in Bethesda, Maryland. Her colleagues include Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein and others in the Vipassana or Insight Meditation tradition. Brach also teaches tenets of Buddhist meditation at centers for meditation and yoga in the United States and Europe including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, the Kripalu Center, 1440 University and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.  Follow her on www.tarabrach.com. Wonderful insights and guided meditations. Available on- line in audio and video.

Eckart Tolle is a German-born resident of Canada, best known as the author of The Power of Now and A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose. In 2011, he was listed by Watkins Review as the most spiritually influential person in the world. In 2008, a New York Times writer called Tolle “the most popular spiritual author in the United States.”

Tolle has said that he was depressed for much of his life until he underwent, at age 29, an “inner transformation.” He then spent several years wandering “in a state of deep bliss” before becoming a spiritual teacher. Later, he moved to North America where he began writing his first book, The Power of Now, which was published in 1997 and reached the New York Times Best Seller list in 2000.

The Power of Now and A New Earth sold an estimated three million and five million copies respectively in North America by 2009. In 2008, approximately 35 million people participated in a series of 10 live webinars with Tolle and television talk show host Oprah Winfrey. Tolle is not identified with any particular religion, but he has been influenced by a wide range of spiritual works. He has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia since 1995.

Rick’s Reference: 

Roman philosopher Lucious Annaeus Seneca (4BCE-65CE), the most famous and popular philosopher of his day, and considered one of the founders of Stoicism.  He saw life as a personal battle over what the individual can control and what she cannot. The key is to overcome that which can be overcome and accept what cannot be controlled—all without complaint and doing whatever it takes. “So long as you live, keep learning how to live.”